


Circles and Lines

by bwayfan25



Category: ER (TV 1994)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Family Feels, Found Family, Gen, Growing Up, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, One Shot Collection, Set in the matriarchs universe, There will be grief, Work Family, and may include some modern stuff too, i'm warning you now, will bounce around seasons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwayfan25/pseuds/bwayfan25
Summary: "The backbone of a genogram is a graphic depiction of how different family members are biologically and legally related to one another from one generation to the next. This map is a construction of squares and circles representing people and lines delineating their relationships. Each family memberis represented by a box (male) or a circle (female)... Sharing a family's history is a sacred relationship." -Genograms: Assessment and Intervention, 1999No one exists in a vacuum and certainly not those who are related by blood, love, and any combination thereof. A collection of one-shots set in the"matriarchs" universefocused on family in all its wonderful and complicated variations. Bounces around seasons and may include some modern stuff too. Titled for the genographic depiction of the relationships of mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives.
Comments: 34
Kudos: 20





	1. Mediated Meditation

Kerry skimmed through the book, occasionally pausing to read a paragraph or look at a pose closer. 

Though she’d thanked her assistant for his thoughtful birthday gift, in all truth, she wasn’t exactly sure how to take being given a book titled  _ Everyday Yoga for Relaxation. _ It was interesting, of course, and definitely not something she’d tried before, but there was part of her that was convinced there had to be some kind of ulterior motive for giving her this. (Especially when he’d added an emphatic, “It’s done  _ wonders _ for my mom.”)

When queried, all of the others thought it really was just a thoughtful gift. Susan, however, agreed that there was an ulterior motive and that the ulterior motive was specifically that Kerry needed to chill.

Kerry, naturally, had scoffed at the very suggestion, but nevertheless found herself sitting on the living room floor, wondering which exercise to start with. Most she’d need to figure out an adaptation of some kind, but others, like some breathing exercises, she could start with today.

“Alright. Lie on my back and close my eyes,” she read aloud before nodding. “I can do that.”

She skimmed the page one more time before setting the book aside and adjusting herself so she could lie down comfortably. 

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose. 

_ 1...2...3...4... _

Then, she exhaled deeply. 

_ 1...2...3...4… _

This was simple enough, she thought, her eyes still closed. 

She inhaled deeply and then exhaled a few more times, imagining as the book encouraged, that she could feel her worries ‘melting away with every breath.’ But just as she made to exhale again and melt away a few more worries, she felt a little finger poking her repeatedly on the shoulder. 

Kerry opened her eyes to see Charlie standing over her, looking down at her with a very worried expression on her face.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“Momma okay?” the toddler asked in a voice just as concerned as her expression. 

Kerry chuckled and nodded the best she could while lying down. 

“Yes, honey. Momma’s okay,” she assured. “Momma’s okay. Charlie doesn’t need to worry. You can go play.”

Charlie, though, did not look assured at all. She frowned and pointed at the carpet.

“Momma floor.”

“Yes, Momma is on the floor,” Kerry said, nodding again. “But Momma’s okay. Momma  _ wants _ to be on the floor.”

Charlie stared at her for a moment.

“Why?”

“Because Momma is doing something on the floor. But Momma’s okay. I promise. You can go play.”

Charlie continued to look at her suspiciously for a moment before walking away.

In her absence, Kerry closed her eyes again and turned her attention back to her breathing. But just as she began to count to four again, she felt something soft being dragged over her legs. 

When she lifted her head to look, she saw Charlie pulling a fleece blanket off of the couch and over top of her.

Kerry watched as she carefully straightened the blanket out and tucked the edges underneath her Momma’s legs and feet. Once satisfied with her work, Charlie then straightened up and explained herself with a simple, “Night-night.”

“No, honey,” Kerry said, unable to keep herself from chuckling. “Momma’s not going night-night.”

Charlie looked at her and then to where Kerry lay on the floor and back up. As there was no better explanation to why Momma was lying quietly on the floor with her eyes closed, Charlie repeated (a far more sincere), “Night-night.”

Kerry chuckled again and then shook her head.

“How about I do this sitting up, hmm?” she asked semi-rhetorically. “Will that convince you that I’m not going night-night?”

Charlie did not answer, but rather just watched curiously as Momma took the blanket off and sat up. She adjusted herself so her back was against the couch and then closed her eyes again. 

Kerry managed to get all the way through two counts of four before she felt something far heavier than a blanket sit itself down on her outstretched legs and then lean back against her.

When she opened her eyes for a third time and found a curious and concerned toddler sitting on her lap, she poked said curious and concerned toddler in her side and asked a high-pitched, “You’re not going to let me do this, are you?”

Charlie just giggled and she tried to wriggle herself away from the poking (without actually getting off of Momma’s lap). This just made Kerry poke her a few more times before scooping her up into her arms and squeezing her tight. 

“Momma!”

“Yes, Charlie?”

But Charlie had no reply and just repeated a satisfied, “Momma.”

“Yes. Momma,” Kerry replied, nodding as she released her. “You just want to play with Momma.”

Charlie nodded, which led Kerry to kiss her on her head.

She was about to stand-up, ready to concede that she was not likely to reap the relaxing benefits of yoga with a two-and-a-half-year-old wanting her attention, but then stopped. She glanced back at the book and then flipped a few pages.

“How about you do these  _ with _ me?” she suggested as she looked over a page.

Charlie didn’t quite understand what this meant but when Momma made to stand up, she happily followed. 

“Alright, Charlie,” Kerry said as she got to her feet. “Reach up! Reach up, Charlie!”

Kerry lifted her arms over her head and stretched towards the ceiling. Charlie did the same, but at the word “up,” she cocked her head in question and reached out towards Kerry instead.

“Up?”

“Not  _ that _ kind of up,” Kerry said, still stretching.  _ “Reach _ up. Reach your arms up.”

_ “Up!” _ Charlie repeated, this time in a whine, as she grabbed for Kerry.

“Oh, alright.” Kerry bent over to pick up Charlie and then lifted the toddler over her head. “Okay.  _ Now, _ reach up. Reach up, Charlie.”

Charlie raised her hands over her head, giggling madly, before Kerry put her back down on the floor. 

“Okay. And now we stretch down,” Kerry instructed after another glance at the book. “Touch your toes.”

“Toes?” 

“Yep, toes. Where are your toes?”

Charlie pointed down at her feet. Kerry glanced up from her own toe-touching and nodded.

“Yep. Those are your toes. Now, touch ‘em.”

Charlie bent over to touch her toes and then looked up at Kerry for confirmation. At Kerry’s nod, she grinned broadly. 

“And we go up again,” Kerry said, reaching out to pick Charlie up as she straightened her back. “Up! Reach up, Charlie!”

Charlie happily obliged, stretching her arms up over her head until Kerry set her back down on the floor again. She then followed along in touching her toes again, before they repeated the stretches once more. 

“You’re getting so big,” Kerry remarked, rubbing her biceps as she sat down again. “You’re a big girl.”

“Big girl!” Charlie repeated excitedly before shaking her head once in each direction. “Not baby.”

“Well, you’re still  _ our _ baby,” Kerry said before pulling Charlie back into her arms. “Charlie is Mommy and Momma’s baby.”

Charlie’s expression hardened into an angry pout.

“No,” she said firmly. “Charlie big girl.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right,” Kerry replied, nodding. “Charlie is a big girl.”

Charlie nodded seriously several times before wrapping her arms around Kerry’s neck. 

As Charlie hugged her, Kerry looked over the toddler’s shoulder towards the yoga book once more. She reached out to flip a few more pages, which led Charlie to release her and look at the book as well.

“How about this one?” Kerry asked as Charlie climbed off of her lap. “For this one, we get on our hands and knees. Like we’re going to crawl.”

At the word “crawl,” Charlie’s expression hardened again. Kerry fought the urge to chuckle and instead added a sincere, “Like big girls.” 

This seemed to appease the toddler, who sat down and then leaned forward onto her hands.

“This is called... ‘cat’s pose,’” Kerry said, reading down the page. “Get on your hands and knees and then… arch your back up.”

She did as the instructions (and photo) instructed, all the while paying careful attention to her hip. In doing so, she would have missed the way her back popped and cracked, had the noises not been so loud.

“I guess I don’t stretch this way enough.” 

Kerry tensed her shoulders for several seconds as she breathed in and then relaxed as she breathed out.

“This is the kitty cat pose,” she said as she tensed and relaxed again. “What does the kitty cat say, Charlie?”

Charlie, who looked less like she was doing yoga and more like she was about to tumble forward, lit up(side down).

“Mrow!”

“Yep. The kitty cat says, ‘Meow.’”

Charlie smiled, biting her lower lip with her little teeth. Kerry smiled back at her before looking to the page and arching her back down. 

“This is ‘cow pose,’” she told Charlie, who was now lying on her stomach (inadvertently demonstrating the child's pose). “What does the cow say, Charlie?”

Charlie opened her mouth to reply, but then smiled as if something mischievous had occurred to her. 

“Oink!”

“That’s not what the cow says,” Kerry said in a playfully accusing voice. “You know what the cow says.”

Charlie paused for another moment to think. 

“Woof!”

Though she knew smiling would just encourage this sort of behavior, Kerry couldn’t help it. Charlie was cute enough as it was  _ without _ looking so darn proud of herself. 

“That’s not what the cow says either,” Kerry said, giving Charlie a silly look of suspicion. “What does the cow say?” 

Charlie grinned again. 

“Mooooo.”

“Now,  _ that’s _ what the cow says,” Kerry said with an exaggerated nod. “Moooooooo.”

“Moooooo!”

Kerry tensed and relaxed her shoulders again before arching her back up again.

“And we’re back to kitty cat.”

“Mrow!”

Kerry repeated the tensing and relaxing again and then arched her back down again. 

“...And then again to cow.”

“Mooooo!”

“Mooooooo.”

“Moooooooooo!”

Mother and daughter continued mooing back and forth for several moments before daughter caught sight of someone watching them. 

Kerry glanced up to find Susan, frozen in the process of removing her coat, watching them from near the kitchen. Her expression was one of great amusement and immense concern. 

“We’re doing yoga,” Kerry informed her simply. 

“Is that what this is?” Susan asked, glancing between the pair of them. 

“Yes,” Kerry said, nodding sincerely. “This is cow pose.” 

Charlie nodded in agreement before adding a bright, “Moooo!”

_ “Ohhhhh,” _ Susan said, nodding in understanding. “I see.”

As Susan resumed shedding her coat, Kerry frowned as she shifted out of cow pose and into a comfortable sitting position.

“What did you think we were doing?” Kerry asked as Charlie all but threw herself back onto her Momma’s lap.

“Honestly, Kerry, I don’t know,” Susan informed her seriously. “My first thought was that you’d finally lost it. My second thought is that you were rehearsing for a production of  _ RENT.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! At this point, is probably not surprising at all to see that I am once again writing _ER_ fanfiction. After all, it's pretty much all I've done over the last year... Okay, fine. _Two_ years. 
> 
> I still enjoy it, though, and have a _lot_ more ideas for different one-shots. Hence, like I wrote [A Forest of Trees](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216501) several months after completing ["unexpected circumstances"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901180), we've got another one-shot collection. But this time, I'm not the only one coming up with ideas! (Though I do apparently have like ten WIPs that I completely forgot about until planning out chapters.)
> 
> I've been able to share ["matriarchs"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24111415) with a small but mighty _ER_ fandom since it's inception earlier last year. And because of how this community has grown and how much its support has meant to me and to the creation of this universe, I have been[ crowdsourcing some prompt ideas](https://forms.gle/Ehka45rQbyNTtkvU7). As many ideas as I have and am excited to share with readers, I know that many people have some ideas that they'd like to see me play with. You're welcome to join them if you haven't already! (And even if you have.) This was inspired by the prompt submitted by wonderofasunrise, who wanted to see some early Charlie stuff. It was left pretty vague and when this popped into my head, I couldn't shake it. Hopefully it's what you hoped for!
> 
> I will give fair warning though: Not every chapter is going to be this lighthearted. Nothing I write is without its fair share of grief, which often takes many forms. Grief is a unviersal equalizer and is, has been, and will be experienced by everyone at some point - and it's _definitely_ experienced by the characters in this unvierse. But, as it's been pointed out before, I never break them down without giving them some kind of hope or, at the very least, a soft place to land. That's why so much of my writing - regardless of what I'm writing about - is about family. Connection is the primary predictor of recovery and is crucial when weathering hard times. 
> 
> I know I've said all this over and over again, so I'll get on with it. If you have any ideas, feel free to share them via the Google Form and I'll see what I can come up with! I've gotten several prompt ideas already that I'm excited about and I've got some new ideas of my own that should be very exciting as well. (drunk!Mildred, anyone?)
> 
> Hope you are doing well and staying safe! Until next time.


	2. Sunday in the Park with Carter

Carter stirred his coffee absently as he looked over the copy of _The Tribune_ that had been left on the table. But as he pondered how on Earth President Clinton lying under oath was not enough to impeach him right out (as how could something as bad as that _not_ lead to Presidential removal?), he suddenly had the very strong feeling that he was being watched. 

He glanced up from the paper to see two children staring at him, almost unblinkingly, from near the kitchen. Carter raised his brow in question, but it did nothing to break the thousand-yard stare. 

But when the children said nothing nor broke their concentration, he narrowed his eyes in understanding.

“Susan warned me about this,” he said, pointing at them with his spoon. “She said that if you just stand there staring, it means you want something from me.”

At this (highly accurate) statement, Annie smiled broadly.

“Will you take us to the park?”

“Why don’t you ask your moms?”

“Well, Mommy is at work and Momma is asleep,” she explained. “So, we’re asking you!”

“Well, I’m happy to take you to the park, but you should probably ask Momma first.”

“But she’s _asleep,”_ Annie repeated. “If I ask her, that means I have to wake her _up.”_

Carter considered the potential consequences for a moment, but then shrugged. 

“I know it’s not ideal,” he admitted, “but I’d feel better if you asked her.”

Annie and Suzie exchanged glances for a moment before Annie turned for the living room.

Kerry was curled up under a polka dotted fleece blanket, fast asleep. The girls considered the recent increase in napping was either related to the fact that sometimes she had to rest more because her hip hurt or the fact that sometimes she had to work at night. Susan and Carter, though, wondered if the increased lethargy was related to the emotional downturn she’d taken earlier in the year. 

Annie tapped her a couple times on the shoulder. Kerry opened her eyes slightly before jolting in surprise at the sight of the eight-year-old standing over her.

“Wh-” Kerry sat up slightly, blinking herself awake. “Wh-What is it? What do you want?”

“Can Carter take us to the park?” Annie asked simply.

Kerry’s brow furrowed in confusion. 

“That’s a question for Carter,” she explained blearily. “You don’t need to ask me.”

“He said we had to make sure it was okay with you.”

“Okay. Well, if Carter wants to take you to the park, Carter can take you to the park,” she said before lying back down.

“Okay!” Annie replied with another bright smile. “Carter’s going to take us to the park.”

_“Okay,”_ Kerry said a bit firmly as she closed her eyes again. “Have fun.”

Annie happily turned back to the kitchen, where Carter and Suzie were already donning coats and shoes. She joined them in doing so, before Carter ran back downstairs to grab his house key.

At the sound of Carter opening the door for the girls, Kerry, eyes still closed, called out a tired but sincere, “Make me proud.”

“We will,” Carter replied automatically, nodding in reply. 

He was about to step out the door when he paused and glanced back at Kerry, who had lifted her head again to look at him. 

“You were… You were talking to them,” he said slowly with a slight point towards the porch.

Kerry said nothing and only raised an eyebrow for a moment before lying back down again. 

But as Carter stepped out the door to join the girls on the porch, he was sure he heard a muttered, “I shouldn’t have to tell _you_ that.”

“So, where is this park?” Carter asked as he followed the girls down to the sidewalk. 

“It’s on the next street over,” Annie informed him cheerfully. “You can follow us. We know where to go.”

“Alright, then. Lead on.”

Suzie took this quite literally and skipped ahead of them, which naturally made Annie want to run ahead of _her._ But, knowing that escalating this could result in Carter revoking their park privileges for the day, she fought the desire and hung back next to Carter. 

“Grandma used to take us to the park on Sundays when she got back from church. She said she liked to go to the park on Sundays because her favorite painting was called _A Sunday in the Park… Sunday Afternoon with…_ ” Annie paused, frowning, as she tried to recall the title of the painting Mildred liked. Then, she shrugged. “I don’t know what it was called exactly. But it was about going to the park on Sunday.”

“Oh, I know what you’re talking about,” Carter replied, nodding. “Yeah. _A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jette_ by Georges Seurat. Or _Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte_ in French.”

Carter looked down at her, thinking she’d be impressed with his bilingual answer, but she just gave him the polite-but-completely-unconvinced smile little kids gave to grownups they weren’t sure were correct about something.

“Uh… sure,” she replied slowly. “We looked at it when we went to the art museum and I remember I thought it was funny because there was a lady with an umbrella that was walking a _monkey.”_

Carter chuckled at Annie’s amusement that someone could walk a money on a leash (let alone along the River Seine) as Suzie turned them down a side street and then down another one a few blocks later. 

“So, what do we start with?” Carter asked as the playground came into view.

“Swings!” Suzie and Annie replied together before taking off in the direction of the swingset.

They ran off with such speed and energy that Carter found himself having to jog to keep up with them. By the time he caught up, Annie had already set (read: thrown) her crutches aside to climb up on the swing. Suzie had claimed the swing next to her, but instead of climbing up onto the seat, had draped herself over it as she waited for Carter to help. 

“Big girl swing!” she announced as Carter joined them. “I want big girl swing!”

“Suzie, you’re still too little for the big girl swing,” Annie said in the annoyed, semi-mature tone of exhaustion unique to eldest children. “You have to go on the other swing.”

“No,” Suzie replied angrily. “Big girl swing.”

“You’re too _little,”_ Annie repeated. 

“How about this,” Carter said, stepping in between them before Suzie could lunge at Annie, “Suzie starts out on the big girl swing, and if she’s too little, then we’ll go to the other one. Okay?”

“Okay,” Annie said with a shrug. “But if she falls off, it’s your fault.”

“I’m prepared to take that responsibility,” Carter assured her. 

Given that the look Annie gave him in reply, he would not have been surprised if she suddenly affected a high-pitched Minnesota accent just to tell him he was wrong.

She didn’t, though, and instead just asked him to push her. He gave her a solid push to get her going before helping Suzie onto the big girl swing. He instructed her to hold on tight and gave her a push too. (She managed to hold on for a few swings before deciding she’d rather use the other swings.)

They spent about ten minutes on the swingset before the blowing wind made swinging a bit too cold for comfort. When they climbed down, Annie helped Suzie put her hat and gloves on before putting her own on and encouraging Carter to do the same.

“What next?” he asked as he pulled his hat down over his ears.

“Slide,” Suzie answered, pointing towards the playground. 

“Sounds good to me,” Carter said with a grin. “Lead the way.”

Suzie didn’t hesitate before running off in the direction of the stairs up the structure. Annie followed close behind her, cheerfully swing-skipping as she explained the rules of their normal games to Carter.

“And you can’t touch the ground for more than three seconds or else the sea monster gets you,” she informed him seriously. “So you gotta move fast.”

“Why does it take three seconds for the sea monster to get you?”

“Because that’s how long it takes for the sea monster to come up from where he lives deep in the ocean,” Annie replied as if it wasn’t a question. “I thought everybody knew that.”

“I guess not quite everybody,” Carter said with a shrug. “But I’m glad I know now.”

Annie nodded and then followed Suzie up to the platform. Carter followed behind her, nearly squatting to keep himself from hitting his head on the platform roof meant for those half his height (and a quarter his age).

“Over there!” Suzie said, pointing to the opposite side of the playset. 

Carter and Annie nodded, but as they made for the bridge that connected the two sides of the playset, Annie stopped suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” Carter asked, catching himself a moment before he ran into her. 

“I don’t like the shaky bridge,” Annie replied quietly.

Carter looked over her head down at the bridge. It was the kind resembling a rope bridge, the faux wood slats held together by chains that moved as kids ran across them. And though clearly sturdy and safe (and only a few feet above the ground), he could understand why she might be wary of them.

“Do you want to go another way?” he offered. “We could go back down and go around to the other side.”

Annie considered for a moment and then shook her head. 

“No. I can do it. I just have to go slow,” she replied in a slow, hesitant voice. “Because if I go too fast, one of my crutches could go off the side and I’d fall. And I don’t wanna fall.”

“That’s fine,” he assured her. “Take your time. Suzie and I will come over once you’re done.”

Annie continued to stare for a moment, seemingly steeling herself for the task ahead, before nodding. 

Carter and Suzie watched for a moment as she began her way across, focused intently on her steps. He figured this must be a regular occurrence, as Suzie remained very patient in a way not many (if any) other three-and-a-half-year-olds would in a similar situation.

Annie was about halfway across when there was the sound of footsteps behind them. 

Three boys between the ages of seven and nine ran up the stairs only to skid to a halt behind Carter and Suzie almost the moment they reached the top of the platform. 

“What’s going on?” one of the boys asked as he tried to peer around Carter. “Why are you standing here?”

“We’re waiting our turn to go across.”

“More than one person can go across at a time,” the oldest amongst them said flatly.

“I know, but she’s asked us to wait so she can go across first,” Carter said. “She wants to take her time.”

The oldest boy managed to catch a glimpse of Annie slowly making her way over the bridge from around Carter. 

“She should have let us go first,” the boy said gruffly. “Since we’re faster.”

“And I’m sure she would have if you’d been up here,” Carter said, his voice growing more firm. “But you weren’t, so you’re going to wait your turn.”

For a moment, the kid looked like he might try to lunge past them, but he didn’t. Instead, he just gave Carter a sneer before glancing back at Annie. He managed to wait a couple more seconds before letting out a huff.

“Kids like her should go play somewhere else,” he muttered (not quite) under his breath. “This is for _normal_ kids.”

“Hey, that is _not_ okay,” Carter said angrily as he turned on the kid. “She has every right to be here, just like you. So, you can be quiet and wait your turn or I can go tell whoever brought you that you’re not playing nice and they can take you home.”

The kid looked taken aback for the briefest of moments before his sneer returned. But if he was going to retory in any way, no one knew, as he was immediately distracted by a guttural growl from somewhere near Carter’s right knee.

A second later, Suzie lunged towards the boys, her little hands balled into fists. They would have made contact too had the boys not recoiled in fear at the same time Carter snatched her mid-air. 

“That’s not _nice,”_ Suzie growled as she fought against Carter’s grasp (and nearly won).

The boys backed away, their looks of frustration replaced with confused fear. 

“Let’s go somewhere else,” the oldest boy announced to his friends. “These people are _crazy.”_

Carter and Suzie watched them run off, tails between their legs before Carter finally released Suzie. He held onto her hand, though, squeezing it gently as he knelt down in front of her. 

“Hey,” he said softly, brushing hair out of her face. “Hey, come on. What was that about?”

“They’re not nice,” Suzie said through gritted (baby) teeth. “They’re being mean. Mean about Annie.”

“Yeah, I know. But that doesn’t mean you can growl and attack them.”

Suzie stared at him, her little jaw set in a very Susan-like way.

“No?”

“No,” Carter replied, shaking his head. 

Suzie considered this for a moment. 

“Why?”

“Why can’t you attack them?”

Suzie nodded. 

“Because that’s not nice either,” Carter told her gently. 

Suzie continued to look at him for a long moment. Though he knew that she was just a preschooler, the look in her eyes made it her seem much, much older. 

“I know that you love your big sister very much,” he said with a small smile. “And you don’t want people to be mean to her-”

“Or Momma.”

“Or Momma,” Carter added, nodding. “What they said was not okay. You know that, and _I_ know that, which means sometimes we have to tell other people that don’t know that that what they’re saying is not okay.”

“He _knew,”_ Suzie stated fiercely. “He was being _mean.”_

Carter thought carefully about how to answer for a moment. But, in the end, he could only shrug. 

“You might be right. Sometimes, people do know that what they’re saying is mean and they say it anyways,” he admitted. “But even in that case, we have to tell them that it’s not okay and do what we can to not let them do it again. And a lot of times, that means you should go get a grownup.”

The orange and pink bauble on Suzie’s hat (which had long ago belonged to Annie) fluttered in the wind as she thought about Carter’s words for a long moment.

“I’m gonna hit ‘em.”

Carter’s eyes grew wide. He quickly shook his head. 

“No. No, you’re not.”

Suzie just nodded seriously. 

“I’m gonna hit ‘em.”

Carter opened his mouth to reply only to close it a moment later. 

“Okay, how about this,” he said, trying to come up with something on the fly. “You can talk to Mommy and Momma about hitting people, but when you’re with me, you’re going to use your words. Okay?”

Suzie looked thoroughly disappointed, but that was not a good enough answer. 

“Okay, Suzie?” 

Suzie gave the question another moment’s contemplation before heaving a big sigh. 

“Okay.”

“Good.”

Carter rubbed Suzie’s upper arm gently in reassurance.

“Are you guys coming?”

Carter and Suzie looked across the bridge to see Annie waiting for them on the other side. Her head was cocked to one side in question, which both Carter and Suzie took to mean she hadn’t heard the boy’s comments nor the topic of their conversation. 

“Yep. We’re coming,” Carter called back. “Just a second.”

He released Suzie’s hand and stood up.

As he dusted himself off, Suzie looked up at him and then to Annie before she took off at a sprint. 

Carter looked up at the sudden movement, suddenly worried Suzie had taken off after the boys after all. But she wasn’t chasing after the boys, but rather running full speed in the direction of Annie. 

She slowed to a stop right before they collided and threw her arms around Annie’s middle in a tight hug. But, given the affectionate gesture was done with more force than such gestures normally would be, Annie was left feeling quite confused.

“Why are you hugging me?”

Suzie did not reply, but rather just redoubled her grip on Annie and squeezed her tighter. 

“Suzie, I can’t move.”

But this did nothing to deter Suzie either, who just held tight to Annie as Carter crossed the bridge towards them. And when he’d drawn even with them, she cast him a look of deepest disdain.

He could say whatever he wanted about not hitting people who were mean, but _she_ was going to protect her sister _her_ way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I hope you're doing well this evening/morning/whatever time it is for you.
> 
> So, in the "unexpected circumstances" universe, we learn that Suzie knocked a kid out cold to defend her friend (and eventual fiancé) Sam. Sam had cerebral palsy and uses a walker, and when Suzie heard other kids making fun of him, she was _not_ going to let the kids be mean to her friend. 
> 
> I explain this 1) because it didn't make it's way into the "matriarchs" universe because 2) I _completely_ forgot this until I was writing the last chapter of [Miracle of Miracles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28142481). Miracle of Miracles (or MoM as pgk pointed out) takes place in December 2020 when Chief President Annie begins the next cycle of matriarchs with the birth of her twin girls. Spoilers: Sam makes an appearance alongside Suzie in the last chapter of the fic.
> 
> But as I considered whether or not he and Suzie would have been friends in this universe as well, I automatically thought about this moment. But then it occurred to me that, in "uc", Suzie feels strongly to stand up against ableist peers because of her Momma, but in "matriarchs", she'd do it because of her Momma _and_ because of her big sister. And while both of them can obviously take care of themselves, I feel like Suzie's sense of protectiveness would be even stronger. In my mind, when she's really little, she likes to pick up sticks at the park so she can be like her big sister. When she gets older and Momma teaches her why she and Annie need their "sticks" and why sometimes people aren't always nice about it, Suzie takes it upon herself to never let people get away with that. And, though Carter means well, when it comes down to it, hitting people for being mean probably sends a much better message than just telling them that. (But you can't tell a three year old that.)
> 
> I just happened to get a request today for Carter babysitting from daisyangel. This isn't _exactly_ what you had suggested (so I may revisit the idea at a later time), but maybe this will suffice? 
> 
> I hope you guys are enjoying. We're going to skip from season five all the way to season twelve in the next chapter, and it's going to be a bit more somber than these past two. I figured I'd warn you now so you don't feel jerked around when Annie and Suzie go from eight and three to fifteen and ten, respectively. If you think about Kerry's main character arc in s12, you can probably guess what it's about, but I think this universe will add a new and enjoyable spin on things. 
> 
> Until next time!


	3. If Not Now

Neela pushed the gurney forward towards the desk despite the occupant’s protest. 

“Ground-level fall in the Ambulance Bay,” she announced to the (bemused) staff watching. “No head trauma, no LOC.”

“Okay, it’s alright,” Kerry said with a huff. “I’m fine.”

“Complains of left hip pain,” Neela continued. “Can’t bear weight.”

“Would you stop it?” Kerry hissed in annoyance.

“I’m just trying to be professional.”

“It’s _annoying.”_

Neela gave the Chief of Staff a small wincing smile before looking to Sam and Luka behind the desk.

“Can one of you go get Dr. Lewis?”

“No, no. There’s no need for that,” Kerry said, waving her away. “I told you I’m fine. It’s just a bruise. Now, get back to work.”

But when Kerry shifted slightly in an effort to sit up, a sharp throbbing pain shot through her pelvis. She froze, grimacing for a long second before sitting back and exhaling deeply. 

Sam, Luka, and Neela all exchanged a glance before Sam’s eyebrows rose. 

“I’ll go get Dr. Lewis.”

“I told you there’s no need for that,” Kerry said, her firm tone tinged slightly with something akin to a whine. “I’m _fine._ Just get me some Tylenol and an ice pack and I’ll be fine.”

This did nothing to stop Sam, though, who disappeared into the bowels of the ER for a moment before returning with Susan in tow. And, if slipping on the ice and a resident bringing her into the ER wasn’t bad enough on its own, the look on Susan’s face certainly didn’t help.

“Oh my God,” Susan said, her mouth hanging open in surprise as she approached the gurney. “What happened?”

“I just slipped. It’s nothing,” Kerry tried to assure her.

The assurance didn’t work, however, as, instead of believing her and subsequently backing off, Susan just looked to Neela and repeated her question. 

“I found her on the ground in the Ambulance Bay,” Neela explained. “No one de-iced today, apparently, and she lost her footing-”

“Which indicates more of a problem with staff responsibility than it does with me,” Kerry cut in. “As _clearly_ someone was shirking their duties. It’s a good thing I’m not a patient-”

“She didn’t appear to have hit her head, but she wasn’t able to stand up on her own-”

“You didn’t give me the chance to!”

“- and she was hesitant to allow me to touch her to help her up, which I felt indicated the likelihood of some kind of injury.”

“And I told you that that wasn’t related to anything other than the fact that I don’t like to be touched. Not to mention the impropriety of assuming that I _needed_ help.”

Neela made to continue on, but Susan raised a hand to stop her. 

“I’m sorry, Neela. Hold on a second.” Susan turned her head to make pointed eye contact with Kerry. _“Hush.”_

Kerry recoiled as if she’d been slapped, her mouth hanging open in surprise. But regardless of her offense, it did, as Susan intended, shut her up.

“Go ahead, Neela,” Susan said, ignoring Kerry’s look of scorn. “You were saying?”

“Dr. Weaver slipped outside and was unable to get up,” Neela repeated. “She complains of left hip pain and couldn’t bear any weight on it when she tried.”

Susan nodded. Beside her on the gurney, Kerry rolled her eyes. 

“I told you it was nothing,” she stated firmly. 

“Then, you’ll have no problem with us taking a look at you.”

Kerry rolled her eyes again, but then gave in with a shrug. 

“Alright fine. Just… get me out of the hallway,” Kerry instructed with a small wave. 

“If you get her started, Neela, I’ll take it from there,” Susan told the younger doctor. 

Neela nodded quickly and moved around the gurney to push it somewhere more private. Once out of Kerry’s view, she glanced at Susan and mouthed a very sincere, _“Thank you.”_

Once her previous patient had been squared away, Susan made her way to Curtain Two.

Kerry was on the bed, her arms crossed and her expression deeply aggravated. But, despite this, she waited until Susan had pulled the curtain shut before saying anything.

“That was uncalled for.”

“I’m sorry, but I was trying to listen to Neela and you would not stop talking,” Susan said in her own tone of aggravation as she made for the stool next to the bed.

“You should have been listening to _me.”_

Susan inhaled deeply as she sat down. 

“Well, I am now,” Susan said, folding her hands on her lap. “Tell me what happened.”

Kerry turned her nose up at the question. 

“Well, now I don’t want to tell you.”

Susan let out an exasperated sigh. But the longer she looked at Kerry, the more her expression softened. 

“They said you couldn’t get up,” she said quietly. “And that you couldn’t bear weight.”

Kerry continued not to look at her for a moment before letting out a sigh of her own. She shook her head. 

“I’d just fallen,” she said in a low voice. “It’s… It’s _normal_ to be in more pain after I fall.”

“I get that. But the fact that it was bad enough for them to bring you in concerns me. And I think we both know they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think something could be wrong.”

No matter how much Kerry wanted to say something to the contrary, she knew that Susan was right. But instead of saying this, she just closed her eyes.

“I want to test your range of motion,” Susan said before standing up. “That’ll help give me an idea of whether I need to keep you here.”

Kerry sighed deeply and then adjusted herself on the bed so Susan could perform the test.

“Don’t you _dare_ get turned on by this,” Susan ordered as she took hold of Kerry’s left calf.

She’d barely started pushing her knee forward before she saw Kerry wince. It seemed to grow stronger as she pushed further and, when Susan made to turn her leg, Kerry let out an audible cry of pain.

But despite the pain (and Susan’s natural instinct to stop and comfort her), they both knew the test was not quite done. Susan had to keep going, turning the join in other ways, before she could set her leg back down. 

There were a few more small gasps and grimaces, but no other sounds like the shout of pain. Still, as Susan took a seat on her stool again, she could feel any lingering annoyance fade as the ache overtook her. 

It must have been obvious on her face, as when Kerry finally glanced up at her, she almost immediately looked away.

“It’s just… It’s just because I fell,” she said quietly. “It’s normal.”

“This is what normal is now?” Susan said, not even trying to hide the disbelief (and anguish) in her voice. 

Kerry opened her mouth to reply, but, unable to come up with a retort, just looked away once more. Susan scooted her stool closer to the bed and dropped her voice.

“It’s been getting worse lately...hasn’t it?”

“It’s been getting worse for twenty-five years,” Kerry said in a voice _almost_ like her usual snap. “That’s what arthritis does.”

“Yes, but it’s been getting _much_ worse lately. I can tell.” Susan’s brow furrowed slightly. “Your ‘bad days’ when you have to stay in bed all day are getting more frequent. They used to be every six to eight weeks and now they’re every two to three. You sit down more often while cleaning. And…. And you haven’t gotten down on the floor to play with Charlie in who knows how long.”

When Kerry still wouldn’t look at her (resolutely refusing to see the look of pain in Susan’s eyes), Susan reached out a hand and gently stroked her arm. She inhaled deeply. 

“Kerry,” she said slowly, “you once told me that there could be a time when-”

“I know what I told you and that’s not what this is,” Kerry said, cutting her off. 

The tinge of fear in Kerry’s voice made Susan feel like a piece of ice had dropped into the pit of her stomach. She was not even _remotely_ convinced that Kerry was fine, but nevertheless squeezed her arm and sighed. 

“We’ll resume this conversation after you’ve gotten an MRI.”

Kerry looked like she might roll her eyes again, but didn’t. She just let out a sigh of her own and then glanced at her watch.

“Do you have any idea how long that will take?” 

“Well, considering your life is not in danger, not as quick as you’d like,” Susan said flatly as she rose from her stool.

Kerry gave her a look of exasperation.

“You could have just said no.”

“Yes, but where’s the fun in that?” Susan asked rhetorically as she started for the opening in the curtain. “In the meantime, I’ll get you something for the pain.”

“And will you call my assistant and tell him to cancel my meetings for the day?” Kerry asked before she could get too far. “And ask him to bring down my laptop.”

Susan, who had not intended this to be an invitation for errands, paused. She turned back to Kerry and gave her a smile that was both amused and put-upon.

“Sure,” she said with a small chuckle. “Anything else?”

“No,” Kerry said, waving her away. “That’s it.”

Susan let out another small chuckle before crossing back towards the side of the bed. 

Once close enough, she bent down and kissed Kerry on the forehead, one hand gently stroking her hair. 

“I’m glad you’re not hurt,” she whispered.

Kerry couldn’t help but relax at Susan’s gentle touch. But before she could lose herself too much in the moment of affection, she recognized the movement of Susan’s hand on her head and frowned. 

“Are you checking me for head wounds?” 

Immediately, Susan’s hand fell away. Then, it rose along with the other in defense as Susan straightened up.

“Sorry. Force of habit.”

“That implies that you kiss your other patients,” Kerry remarked, raising a playfully accusatory eyebrow. 

Susan shrugged.

“Only the pretty ones.”

Though it was reasonably only a few hours in between the fall and the MRI and a few more between the MRI and Susan returning to the curtain with the results in hand, to Kerry, it had felt like days. 

“I just got off the phone with Michael. He’s going to pick Suzie and Charlie up from school along with Annie. Since Suzie doesn’t have dance class tonight, they’re going to go with him to watch Annie’s indoor practice,” she informed Susan as the latter stepped inside the curtain. “I told him they’re not going to be happy about it, but they’ll be a lot less argumentative if he agrees not to let Annie drive. Lord knows what they’re going to do when she gets her license and it becomes her job to help take them places.”

Susan gave her a small smile that faded the instant she took a seat on the stool again. Its fleeting nature along with the results in her hand made the already (ever) present anxiety in Kerry’s chest tighten.

“I already took a look,” Susan said as she handed Kerry the imaging results. “I see several bone spurs and a likely cartilage tear, but I only looked for a second.”

“Meaning there could be less?”

“Meaning there could be more.”

Kerry picked up her glasses from where they hung on the chain around her neck so she could better read through the results. 

“Advanced degeneration with a cartilaginous flap,” she read from the front summary page. “Well, that explains the pain.”

She continued to read through the paperwork for a moment before setting it down on her lap and looking at Susan. 

“Well,” Kerry said with a small gesture at the imaging. “You looked at it. What do you think?”

Susan glanced down at it and then back up to Kerry.

“Are you asking me as your doctor or your wife?” 

“Yes.”

Susan picked the paper and took a closer look at it for a moment before setting it back down on Kerry’s lap. 

“As your doctor,” Susan began in as controlled a voice as she could, “I would start with pain management. Referring you back to your rheumatologist for follow-up. Maybe bed rest, possibly physical therapy with a focus on improving and maintaining function. To improve quality of life.”

Kerry nodded as she considered Susan’s advice before looking back up at her.

“And as my wife?”

The anguish in Susan’s eyes that she tried to avoid looking at earlier had returned en force. And as Susan took her hand gently in her own, she imagined she could feel the cold of it seeping from Susan’s hands and settling deeply beneath her skin. 

“I think you’ve been in a lot more pain than any of us have known,” Susan said in a tiny voice as tears began to prick the corners of her eyes. “And I don’t want you to be in pain.

“I want you to be able to get on the floor and play with Charlie and to be able to do your job and come to soccer games and dance recitals with us,” she continued quietly. “I want you to be able to clean and tote the kids around and all the things you love to do. And I know that’s all you want to.”

“So, you think I should do it?”

Susan inhaled deeply and squeezed Kerry’s hand. Then, she shook her head. 

“I can’t make that decision for you. That has to be up to you,” she said as she rubbed circles on the back of Kerry’s hand with her thumb. “All I want is for you to be able to get what you want out of life. And, no matter what direction that is, you know I’ll be right here with you.”

There was a part of Kerry that felt like Susan’s refusing to say either way what she’d suggest Kerry do felt like a cop-out. Like she was making an excuse to not have to choose under the guise of leaving it up to Kerry. But the rational part of her brain that knew and trusted Susan better than that knew that the anger was really just fear. 

Susan was right. She _couldn’t_ make that decision for her, nor, Kerry knew, would she want her to. But neither did _she_ want to have to make it either. 

She tried to avoid it for a few weeks, instead choosing to make an appointment with a physical therapist and then with a physical medicine doctor, only to cancel them a few days in advance. She then followed through on a trip to see her rheumatologist, only for them to encourage the surgery when she brought it up. 

It took her a few more weeks to work up the courage to ask Elizabeth which orthopedic surgeon at County came the most highly recommended.

That seemed to be the decision in and of itself, she thought a few nights later as she sat on the couch next to Charlie. Elizabeth now knew she was thinking about it, as did Susan. And, though they could both be very discreet when they needed to be, it was only a matter of time before everyone knew.

And if everyone at the hospital was soon to know, that meant others were going to need to know soon, too.

“Go get them out of my room, Annie,” Suzie said angrily from near the kitchen.

“I’ll get them eventually, Suzie,” Annie shot back.

“You keep saying that,” Suzie said with a sneer. “But you keep not doing it.”

“If it bothers you so much, Suzie, why don’t you go get it out of your room yourself,” Annie said, rolling her eyes.

“Because it’s not my stuff!” Suzie pointed towards the door to Annie’s bedroom. “It’s like the words on your wall, Annie. ‘If not now, _when?’”_

Annie’s nostrils flared as she clenched her jaw tight. 

“Why are you in my room enough to know what that says?” she said through gritted teeth.

“Girls, cut it out,” Kerry snapped from across the room.

Both of them (as well as Charlie) all immediately stiffened as they turned to look at her. And their panicked _oh-[insert curse word I don’t know yet]-I’m-about-to-get-grounded_ looks only intensified as Kerry slowly stood up. 

“Annie, go get whatever it is out of Suzie’s room, and Suzie, once she does that, drop it,” Kerry said firmly. Then, she frowned and looked at Annie. “What is she talking about? What words on your wall?”

“The quote from Hillel that I painted last year at camp,” Annie replied. “‘If I am not for me, who will be for me? And if I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?’”

Beside her, Suzie’s hands balled into little fists as she all but stamped her foot in frustration.

_“Now.”_

Annie let out a huff, but nevertheless turned for the stairs. Suzie followed close behind her, ready to ensure she followed through. 

Kerry followed after them too, but instead of going up the stairs (which she’d been avoiding as much as possible as of late), she paused in the doorway to Annie’s bedroom. 

The quote in question was hanging on the wall over Annie’s bed. White letters were painted over a background of different shades of blue. 

_אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי._

_וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי._

_וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתַי_

Given that it had been hanging there since last summer, Kerry knew she’d seen it before. Many times even. But, given that she didn’t know what the words meant until now (barring the likely instance Annie told her upon bringing it home), she felt like she was seeing it for the first time. 

“Excuse me, Momma.”

Kerry jumped slightly in surprise at the sounds of Annie’s voice behind her. She’d been looking at it for so long that Annie had gone upstairs, spent a good ten minutes arguing over what constituted her stuff and what constituted Suzie’s, before gathering her stuff up and bringing it back down.

Kerry stepped aside to let Annie by. She could have turned around and left, but the force of the words on the wall seemed to hold her in place. 

_If not now, when?_

Now. 

Kerry heaved a sigh. 

“Annie, we need to talk.”

Annie’s eyes grew wide. Immediately, she gestured to the box of stuff she’d just set down on her desk.

“I went and got it,” she said quickly. “Like you said.”

“It’s not about that,” Kerry said, shaking her head. “Have a seat.”

Annie’s eyes remained wide as she set her crutches aside and slowly sat down on her bed. Kerry did the same before taking a deep breath.

“You remember a few weeks ago when Daddy had to take Charlie and Suzie to your soccer practice because Mommy and I were stuck in the ER?”

Annie nodded. Kerry bit her lip. 

“I wasn’t working,” she admitted hesitantly. “We were stuck there because I was patient.”

Annie’s brow furrowed. 

“What happened?”

“I slipped on the ice as I was walking in that morning and….” Kerry heaved a sigh. “And I couldn’t get up.”

Annie’s look of concern deepend, which only served to make it harder for Kerry to get the words out. 

“Do you remember how I told you a long time ago that my hip might get so bad that it would be hard to do my job and to take care of you and your sisters? And that, when that happened, I would have to get surgery to treat it?” At Annie’s nodding reply, Kerry closed her eyes. “I think that time has come.”

Annie took a second to consider this, her brow furrowing even deeper.

“You’re going to have to get surgery?” she asked in a concerned voice that hurt Kerry’s heart.

“Mm-hmm,” Kerry replied, nodding. “It’s called a Total Hip Replacement.”

“Which means they’re going to totally replace your hip?” Annie concluded. 

“Pretty much.”

Annie took another moment to think. Her look of concern, though still present, changed somewhat to something closer to curiosity.

“How do they do that?” 

“Well, you know how the hip works. It’s a ball and socket and the ball is supposed to fit into the socket. But since our hips are weird, they don’t fit quite the way they’re supposed to,” Kerry said, automatically making a fist and closing the other hand over it to represent the joint. “The surgery would remove the ball at the top of the femur, the upper leg bone. Then, they’d remove the socket too, and replace both with a prosthetic.”

At the word “prosthetic,” Annie frowned in confusion.

“Prosthetic? Isn’t that what you use when you don’t have an arm or a leg?” she asked. “Like Dr. Romano has?”

“That’s usually how we use it, yes,” Kerry said, nodding. “But really it means a medical device that… that substitutes for something that’s not there.”

Annie nodded in understanding. 

“So, basically they’re going to cut out the weird parts of your hip,” she said slowly, looking to Kerry to make sure she was on the right track, “and replace it with a fake one that works better?”

“Exactly.”

“And…” Annie paused for a moment, thinking. “So, does that mean that after the surgery, you’re not going to need your crutch anymore?”

“Well, there for a while after while I’m recovering, I’m going to need _two,”_ Kerry informed her with a small chuckle. But then, her brow furrowed once more. “But, after I recover, then… yes. That’s the idea.”

Annie’s brow rose. 

“That’s gonna be weird.”

“You’re telling me.”

Annie smiled slightly for a moment before she fell into another long moment of contemplation. Kerry found it hard to read anything in her expression, which made her all the more anxious.

“This wasn’t an easy decision to make,” she said before she could stop herself. “There’s a lot to consider. And I have a lot of thoughts and questions and… and worries. And I know you probably do, too.

“And, Annie, honey, you know you can always tell me anything. Even if, in this case, it’s not… even if it’s not very nice or happy. It’s a big deal and I want to know how you feel. Whatever it is. Concerns, questions - anything.”

Annie nodded in acknowledgement, but she still appeared deep in thought.

“I do have _one_ question,” she said slowly after a long moment. 

Fear gripped Kerry’s heart. 

This was it, she thought. Anger, bargaining, maybe even betrayal. 

At best, Annie would be mad for a few days and then come to terms with it and move on. At worst, this could be the beginning of a rift between them that may never recover. 

Because, as much as Kerry tried to tell herself that Annie was a smart, mature young woman, the truth was that she was only fifteen. Old enough to understand the reasons and to hear out Kerry’s logic, but still young enough to lack the emotional maturity something like this could really require. 

“Of course, honey,” Kerry replied quietly. “Anything.”

Annie cocked her head slightly in question. 

“Are they gonna take x-rays of your hip before and after?”

Kerry blinked. 

“...Yes?”

Annie sat forward slightly and narrowed her eyes in question.

“Can I look at them?”

“Look at the x-rays?” Kerry repeated, her brow furrowing (but for a very different reason than it had a second ago). “Why do you want to look at the x-rays?’

“Because I want to know what it looks like and I figured you wouldn’t let me watch,” Annie replied with a shrug.

Kerry’s mouth fell open in surprise. 

“You want to _watch?”_

Annie lit up.

“Can I?”

Kerry stared at her for a long moment.

“Wh-Wh…. Why-Wh-” Kerry blinked several more times, suddenly questioning if she was even awake. “Wh…. Where did this come from?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking lately that I’m going to be a junior next year, which means I need to start thinking about where I want to go to college, which means I need to start thinking about what I want to _do_ in college,” Annie informed her very matter-of-factly. “And you know that one time I dressed up as you for Halloween and you asked me if I wanted to be the next Dr. Levin?”

Kerry nodded slowly. 

“Yeah.”

“Well, I think I do! But I don’t think I would want to work in the ER. I think I would want to be a surgeon like Daddy. And I think the best way to know that for _sure_ would be to watch a real surgery….” Annie sat up in excitement. “So, can I watch yours?”

Kerry, stunned into silence by the drastically unexpected response (that, had she not been projecting possibile anxieties onto Annie, she might have been less surprised by), could not reply for at least a minute. Her substantial relief that Annie had taken the news well was no match for the sheer confusion that, of all the ways she _could_ have taken it, it had been this.

“I’ll… I’ll talk to my surgeon.”

Michael’s eyebrow rose as Kerry shook her head. She let out a sigh and looked up at him. 

“I just… You’re a surgeon,” she said, gesturing towards him. “Would you let a kid watch their parent’s surgery?”

Michael took a second to think. Then, to Kerry’s chagrin, he shrugged.

“Honestly? Sure. If the kid’s okay with it, the parent’s okay with it… I don’t see why not.”

As he predicted, Kerry let out a scoff. 

“I’m sorry. That’s not what you wanted me to say?”

Kerry gave him a look of exasperation (but couldn’t deny it was true). He took it as a look of judgement and rolled his eyes. 

“I mean, I wouldn’t be comfortable with it if it was a life-or-death situation, like a trauma surgery. But something routine like this? Sure,” he said with another shrug. Then, he let out a small chuckle. “Besides. It’s just a hip replacement. She’s seen _much_ worse.”

They both realized what he’d said at the exact same moment. And when he dared to make eye contact with her, he found her staring at him dangerously. 

“What do you mean ‘she’s seen worse?’” she repeated, a warning anger in her voice. “What did you show her, Michael?”

“I just meant... you know… medical dramas on TV…. They can get pretty, uh, gorey-”

_“What did you show her?”_

Michael, who had been walking back both literally and linguistically at the look in Kerry’s eye, forced himself to stop. He took a breath to steele himself before looking at her again. 

“Do you know those surgical training videos I had? The tapes?” Michael asked hesitantly. “Well, she kept asking to watch them, and I kept telling her ‘No, you don’t, they’re yucky,’ but she wouldn’t stop. So, I decided I’d show her just a little bit. Just enough for her to know that she really didn’t want to watch them... and….”

Michael’s words trailed off, leading Kerry to take a step towards him.

_“And?”_

Michael gave her a sheepish smile. 

“She loved them. Watched all of them… several times.”

 _“All of them?”_ Kerry asked in shock. “What’s ‘all of them?’ What did she see?”

“There was an appendectomy, a cholecystectomy, an ex-lap…I think there was a heart transplant in there somewhere…” Michael thought for a second. “Oh! And a knee replacement.”

“And you didn’t tell me any of this _why?”_

Kerry’s demand was so loud that several ER staff walking by their conversation instinctively stiffened as if worried they were suddenly the recipient of the outburst. 

“To avoid this.”

Kerry looked like she was about to snap again, but held her tongue as she could tell she’d just inadvertently proved Michael’s point. But just as she had calmed herself enough to continue the conversation, a thought occurred to her. 

“Hang on a second,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “You told a fifteen-year-old that it was _yucky?”_

“It .... _may_ have been a couple years ago…” Michael replied slowly. 

“How old was she, Michael?”

“I don’t-”

“How. Old. Was. She?”

Michael winced. 

“Six.”

_“Six?”_

“Oh, come on, Kerry,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t have _loved_ to have watched surgical training videos when _you_ were six.”

“Well, that’s not…. That’s not true,” Kerry stammered (read: lied).

“Says the woman who pestered my dad with really detailed questions about limb lengthening when she was sixteen,” Michael stated, crossing his arms. 

“That was _different,”_ Kerry insisted. “That was for surgery that I was getting. I needed to know-”

“He was a _family physician,”_ Michael said with a sound that was both a laugh and a scoff. “He kept telling you that he didn’t know the answer and you _kept asking him.”_

Before Kerry could come up with a good explanation (or at least a retort), Michael raised his hands defensively. 

“Look. It’s your surgery. If you don’t want her to watch, then just tell her that. She’ll understand.” He gave another shrug. “And, if anything, now you know she can handle it.”

But, despite Michael’s reassurance (and the new evidence) that Annie could handle watching a two-hour joint replacement easing some of her anxiety, in all truth, it was fairly low on the list of her worries. 

As the date of the surgery grew closer, the entire family was mobilized into preparing for the recovery to follow. Suzie and Charlie were tasked with helping to get the house ready while Michael and Adam were conscripted for assistance with childcare. Annie was handed the keys to Kerry’s car to assist with transportation (only with an adult in the car and only temporarily, as she had to be constantly reminded), and, as if cementing she really was going through with this, Donald Anspaugh was approached to step in as Acting Chief of Staff for the six to eight weeks she’d be out. 

And, yet, even with the preparations made and the roles assigned, Kerry still found her thoughts flitting in and out at the speed of light, as she sat in the hospital bed in the Surgical Prep area. 

As promised, Susan was by her side, having handed Annie off to Elizabeth to get changed into blue scrubs and taken to the observation area above the OR where Kerry would be in a few short minutes. 

Sensing the lingering nervousness, Susan reached over and took Kerry’s hand. She squeezed it tight. 

“It’s going to be okay,” she assured Kerry quietly. 

She lifted Kerry’s hand to her lips and kissed it, but it did nothing to assuage any of the worry on Kerry’s face. (Susan hadn’t necessarily expected it to, but figured it could never hurt.)

“Susan, I want….” Kerry took a deep breath. “Susan, if this goes south-”

“Kerry, it’s not going to go south-”

“But if it _does,”_ Kerry pressed. She took another deep breath and looked Susan in the eye. “Michael is going to get custody of Annie. But… But I wouldn’t want anything to change. I would still want her to live with you part time. I would still want her to grow up with her sisters. And I… I didn’t think to talk about it with Michael, but I’m sure he would understand.”

“I’m sure he would,” Susan agreed. “But Kerry, it’s going to be-”

“Just promise me,” Kerry said, cutting her off. “Just… Just promise me you’re going to look after her. And the girls.” 

Susan rose from her chair and perched herself on the bed. She kissed Kerry gently on the cheek, letting her forehead linger against Kerr’s for a moment before pulling away. 

“I promise,” she said as she gently brushed a stray hair behind Kerry’s ear. “But I also promise you that everything’s going to go well. It’s a routine procedure, you’ve got some of the best surgeons in the hospital working on you, and Annie’s going to be there watching over you.”

Susan chanced another kiss, this time on Kerry’s forehead, before they both looked up at movement nearby. 

Nurse Shirley was watching from nearby. 

“I’m here to fetch Dr. Weaver,” she informed them with a smile. “Dr. Lewis, you’re welcome to wait in the Surgical Waiting Room until we’re done.”

Susan nodded and stood up as Shirley picked up the chart to begin the process of moving her into the OR. But before she ducked out to wait, she squeezed Kerry’s hand once more and murmured, “I’ll see you on the other side.”

The other side, from Susan’s point of view, at least, could not come fast enough. 

There were rarely ever long periods of just waiting down in the ER. And while she was amongst the first to complain of the workload, she much preferred the neverending flurry of activity downstairs to this. 

She knew logically that there was more going on _behind_ the door to the rest of the Surgical floor and that her feelings were likely due to the fact that she was used to being on the other side of the door, so to speak. But, either way, having to spend hours just waiting was enough to put her on edge. 

With a Total Hip Replacement typically lasting one to two hours, the clock ticking past two and a half caused Susan’s anxious agitation to grow. But before she could mutter _“Fuck it,”_ and go grab her white coat from downstairs to sneak her way back, the door opened up and a familiar form (in blue scrubs) stepped out. 

“Annie,” Susan called out.

At the sound of her name, Annie glanced around. Upon seeing Susan, she lit up and hurried over to her. 

“How did it go?” Susan asked seriously. 

She took it as a good sign that the question only made Annie’s smile grow broader instead of causing her to burst into tears. However, the gleeful fervor in her eyes was nevertheless concerning in and of itself. 

“It was the coolest thing _ever,”_ Annie told her, nearly bouncing up and down in enthusiasm. “I got to watch the whole thing. Even when they gave her the medicine to put her to sleep. They told her to count backwards from one hundred, so I thought that meant she was going to count all the way down to one, but she _didn’t._ She was asleep by ninety-five.”

Annie’s words grew in speed and exuberance the longer she spoke, making it difficult for Susan to snap her out of it.

“Annie…. Annie…. _Annalise.”_

The trouble name (and, namely, the mother using it) yanked Annie back to reality. 

“Yeah?”

“Your _mother,”_ Susan said firmly. “How is your _mother?”_

“Oh. She’s fine,” Annie replied simply. “She’s still asleep. They said she should be waking up soon.”

“Okay,” Susan said with an exhale. “Good.”

Annie took a deep breath, ready to launch into another excited retelling, but was cut off when Susan raised a finger at her.

“Listen to me- _Listen to me,”_ Susan ordered. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. But you know how big of a deal this was for Momma, right? So, I don’t want you talking about how cool it was unless she asks you. Okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Annie affirmed, nodding sincerely. 

“Good. Now, let’s go see where she is,” Susan said as she lowered her finger.

Annie nodded and led Susan back through the door. Elizabeth was waiting just inside to lead them back to the room Kerry had been moved to.

She was, as Annie had said, still asleep when they arrived. Annie went in and took a seat in the chair to Kerry’s right, but Susan hung back in the doorway with Elizabeth.

“You can be honest with me,” Susan muttered, dropping her voice so Annie couldn’t hear. “How was she?”

“She did great,” Elizabeth replied with a shrug. “I was a bit concerned that she might not make it through the incision, giving that it was Kerry on the table, but she did fine. She asked a _lot_ of questions, a portion of which were asking if the surgeons were doing things right. And while I knew that she was likely asking to make sure her mother was getting the best care possible, it was very difficult not to be reminded of someone else who tends to ask a lot of questions while judging other people’s work.”

Susan shrugged in agreement before glancing at that certain someone out of the corner of her eye. When she glanced back at Elizabeth, she raised her eyebrows. 

“Well, I can say with a lot of certainty that she didn’t get that from _me.”_

Elizabeth chuckled before someone called for her down the hall. She squeezed Susan’s arm once before ducking out, leaving Susan to take a seat in the chair to Kerry’s left opposite Annie.

For a moment, she just made pointed eye contact with her eldest daughter, who was very nearly vibrating with contained excitement. Whether her attempted communication with said eldest daughter through eyebrows and telepathy that she needed to chill was understood was unknown as Kerry began to stir slightly in the bed.

It took several more minutes for the anesthesia to wear off enough for her to keep her eyes open long enough to orient herself to her surroundings.

“Hi,” Susan greeted softly when Kerry managed to stay awake enough to look at her properly. “How do you feel? Any pain?”

Kerry swallowed several times to try, and then coughed, the tube from the ventilator having rendered her throat sore and dry. Susan got her a cup of water, which she drank gratefully.

“Not as of yet,” she replied hoarsely.

Susan refilled her water cup. Kerry drank this too, feeling some of the schmutz clearing from her throat, before she noticed Annie sitting on her other side. She set the cup down and laid her head back, turning her head to look at Annie.

“Well? Did you watch it?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“All of it?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“What did you think?”

Annie took a long moment to consider her answer before answering, “It was neat.”

Kerry picked her head up again, looking at Annie in disbelief. 

_“Really?”_ she said in an expression as unbelieving as her expression. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Welllllll….”

Annie looked at Susan, who rolled her eyes in concession. 

“Oh, go on,” she said, waving Annie on.

Annie immediately sat up straight, her earlier excitement returning in an instant.

“It was _so cool._ It was… really kinda gross. But it was _so cool.”_ She sat forward in her chair. “After they rolled you out, Aunt Lizzie took me down into the OR and I got to hold the piece of your hip that they cut out of you. It was… oddly bumpy. I thought bones were supposed to be smooth, but she said that was probably because of the arthritis, but now I’m confused as to what exactly arthritis _is-”_

“Okay, okay,” Susan said, trying (and failing) to keep Annie from going too far. 

But Kerry just waved Susan away and laid her head back again.

“It’s okay,” she assured. “At least _one_ of us enjoyed it.”

Susan scooted her chair closer and stroked Kerry’s cheek. She leaned forward and dropped her voice. 

“She’ll probably enjoy it less when she has to help you go to the bathroom later.”

Kerry chuckled as they both looked back at Annie, who had not even noticed they were no longer listening to her. 

“Right, Annie?”

Annie stopped mid-word and then deflated slightly. 

“Sorry. I didn’t hear what you said,” she admitted apologetically. “What was it?”

“Nothing,” Kerry said, shaking her head. “What were you saying?”

Annie’s eyes lit up with the same gleeful fervor Susan had seen earlier. 

“They moved your muscles around,” she said in excited awe. “I didn’t know they could _do_ that.”

Susan was about to try once more to get her to relax when her phone rang. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen before standing up. 

“It’s Adam. I should make sure no one has strangled anyone,” she explained as she started for the door. “I’ll let them know everything went okay.”

In Susan’s absence, Kerry expected Annie to stop holding back any more of her excitement, but she didn’t. Instead, she fell quiet. 

Kerry glanced towards her to find her looking around in concern.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“I just realized that I don’t know where they put your crutch…” Annie said slowly. “And also I just realized I didn’t bring a second one for you like I was supposed to…”

Before Kerry could assure her that it was okay, Annie got an idea. 

“You could use mine,” she offered with a gesture towards the magenta sticker-covered crutches next to her. “Since you need two. We can’t use them at the same time, obviously, but you have to sleep here tonight, so that shouldn’t be a problem. And I can make them shorter for you.”

Kerry gave her a look (though she was fighting the urge to laugh).

“Was the entire point of offering them just so you could say that?”

Annie frowned. 

“No.”

Kerry watched closely for a moment, waiting for Annie to crack. When she didn’t (indicating the offer and any accidental insults had been said with good intentions), Kerry sighed.

“I think you’re taking this all better than I am,” she thought aloud. 

Annie’s brow furrowed. 

“What do you mean?”

Kerry shrugged.

“I don’t know. I think that…” She paused for a moment. “This wasn’t an easy decision for me to make. For a lot of reasons. But I think that I…. Well, I think that one thing that really worried me was that you were going to be hurt. That you were going to be mad at me.”

“You were worried that I was gonna be mad at you for getting surgery?” Annie asked, her confusion deepening.

“I was worried that you were going to be mad that I was going to get this _specific_ surgery,” Kerry clarified. “Because it meant that I wouldn’t have a weird hip or need my crutch anymore. And those are things we’ve always had in common. And I guess I was worried you’d be sad that we wouldn’t have them in common anymore. Because I am.”

Annie shrugged slightly in acknowledgement, but she still looked very confused. 

“I mean… maybe a little bit?” she guessed. “But that’s not the _only_ thing we have in common.”

 _“I know that,_ ” Kerry said, clicking her tongue. But then her expression and tone softened again. “But it’s a pretty big one. And not one we share with the others.”

“Except Charlie,” Annie said. “But Charlie’s hip isn’t weird anymore.”

Kerry gave her a sad smile. 

“And now neither is mine.”

Kerry had expected Annie to nod in agreement, but, as with most things, Annie’s reaction proved far less predictable than Kerry would have, well, predicted.

Instead of nodding or even shrugging, Annie gave Kerry a dubious look. 

“Well, I thought that, too, at first… but now having _seen_ it, I think it’s still weird. It’s just weird in a different way,” Annie told Kerry seriously. “Like it used to be weird in a way that hurt you, but now it’s weird in that it’s not made of bone. Which is still weird. Possibly even _weirder.”_

Part of Kerry wondered if Annie was saying this to reassure her that nothing between them had changed, but the bigger part of her knew Annie was being one hundred percent sincere.

“Wait, your new hip is made out of metal, right?” At Kerry’s nod, Annie gave a slightly mischievous smile. “Does that mean that it could buzz in the metal detectors downstairs and at the fair and stuff? Because they always tell us to take off our belts and other metal stuff that could make it go off, but you can’t take off your hip because it’s your _hip.”_

Kerry smiled and then shrugged in concession.

“Yes, it’ll be able to set off a metal detector,” she replied. “The surgeon will give me a little card that says that I have a metal hip. So that, if it goes off, they won’t think I have an explosive.”

This information just made Annie’s smile grow. 

“So, you’ll have to carry around a card that says you have a metal hip so that people at the airport don’t think you have a bomb?” She shook her head slightly, chuckling to herself. “Yeah, Momma. _Still_ weird.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know that this chapter took forever to write, but I promise there are reasons for that.
> 
> The first is that I woke up with the idea for a mother-daughter fic last Thursday, but not for _ER._ Instead, it was for my player character in _Skyrim._ And, as happens from time to time, I had to[ get it out of my system](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814508) before I could do anything else. And, because I'm me, a seemingly short one-shot ended up clocking in at just shy of 7k words. 
> 
> The second is that, though I had from the conversation between Kerry and Annie through Kerry waking up after surgery figured out in my head, a gifset of a very grumpy Kerry on a gurney at the beginning of _If Not Now_ circled through tumblr and I was overcome with the need to write bickering wives. But with the bickering also came the hurt-comfort of Kerry getting the results. And then the tying in of the original quote of "If not now, when?" ([translation and Hebrew from Sefaria.org](https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/35125?lang=bi)) and eventually the very last scene where Kerry finally tells Annie her feelings. 
> 
> Or, in other words, every time I thought knew how long this chapter was going to be, it got longer. Hopefully, it was worth it. 
> 
> In addition to adding some levity (or, rather, Levin-ity) by having Annie catch Kerry off guard by asking to watch the surgery, I knew all along that Kerry's concerns would not be shared by her. Though she'd know it would be weird that Momma would no longer need her crutch, it wouldn't have the same weight on her that it would on Kerry. In this universe, Kerry's identity as a disabled person is not just tied to herself but also tied to Annie. Her internal struggle to this looming adjustment would have been made harder by the fact that it was seemingly severing something between them. But, as often happens with anxiety, it was worse in Kerry's head than it was in real life. She worked hard to make sure Annie didn't inherit her shame and doubt, which unfolds in more ways than she'd expect. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this one and - in particular - that it felt like it did the original episode(s) justice while keeping true to this universe. And, of course, struck the right balance between light and heavy. 
> 
> Until next time!


	4. Donor Gala

Susan admired the rich, dark colors of the Carter Family’s Persian rugs and ornate tapestries lining the walls as she made her way back from the bathroom. 

It was hard to believe that someone who grew up surrounded by all of this could turn out as down-to-earth and caring as Carter was. But even though they were celebrating the Carter Family Foundation’s generous support of the County General free clinic, she knew that, when it came down to it, John Truman Carter III was the exception and not the rule.

Millicent Carter had been rather hands-off when it came to the clinic, but had insisted that the expansion of the clinic had to be celebrated with a fundraising gala. She’d handled the planning herself, and had invited both those who had contributed $500 or more to clinic operations as well as many personal friends (who, if asked properly, certainly could). 

Clinic volunteers had been invited too, which was why she and Kerry had been invited. Mildred had received an invitation as well in gratitude for the $1,000 check she’d handed Kerry at Christmas. (“I told you, dear, I’d rather spend my money while I’m still alive instead of leaving it for after I’m dead. Besides, you put a limit on how much I could spend on the girls.”)

So, they left Annie _and_ Suzie with Michael and Adam for the night and got dressed up to go. It was a formal affair, meaning Susan had to find a dress that looked like it was fit for a gala without costing the same as the minimum donation required to get it. 

It had taken a bit of searching, but Susan had managed to find a burgundy floor-length dress with a high-cut neckline for less than a hundred dollars that had the added bonus of not appearing _too_ much like a prom dress. She’d also found a blouse in a similar color that she picked up for Kerry, who paired it with a dark gray blazer and pants and a silk scarf underneath her lapels. 

Kerry had some hesitation to the blouse, as she feared the color may make some figure out she’d intentionally planned on matching with Susan. What she did not notice , though, was that her chosen outfit bore a significant resemblance not to Susan’s but rather to _Mildred’s_. The only difference was in the color, with Mildred choosing to wear a blue and black instead of burgundy and gray.

Neither of the Weaver women seemed to notice that they were essentially wearing the same outfit, but Susan most certainly did. She didn’t say anything, however, as it was too late for either of them to find something else to wear. Besides, seeing Mildred all dressed up in her nice suit, ~~Kerry’s~~ her silver-handled cane in one hand and a wine glass in the other, made Susan feel like she was seeing Kerry in forty years. 

Susan found the pair of them chatting with Carter and Millicent when she returned to the main hall. They were both listening to Millicent tell a story with the same look of polite curiosity on their faces (though Mildred’s cheeks were considerably pinker than Kerry’s).

“And I looked him dead in the eye,” Millicent recounted, “and I said, ‘That might fly with your Hollywood chippies, Mr. President, but I am a lady.’"

“What did he do?” Carter asked, frowning (as he had never heard this particular Gamma story before).

“He took his hand off my rear and apologized,” Millicent informed him simply. 

“And that was it?”

Millicent gave a small shrug. 

“Then I slept with him.”

Carter would have spat the entire sip of wine he’d just taken all over the others had he not managed to slap a hand over his mouth. This earned him a look of displeasure from Millicent, as well as look of concern from Kerry and a chuckle from Susan.

Mildred, however, seemed to pay him no mind. Her interest lay with Millicent and her story. 

“Millicent, if I may,” she began, her words a bit slurred as she spoke, “did you sleep with Reagan before or after he _ruined_ this country?”

All eyes in the group snapped to her in an instant, though it didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. Kerry’s look of concern immediately grew into wide-eyed terror. 

_“Mom.”_

“I beg your pardon?” Millicent said in a tone of offense. 

“I’m sorry. Do you need a year?” Mildred laid a hand on Kerry’s arm, both to get her attention and to steady herself. “Dear, what year was Reagan elected?”

Before Kerry could reply, Millicent pulled herself up to full height. 

“Well, I, for one, don’t believe Ronald Reagan ruined this country at all,” she informed Mildred seriously. “I think he made this country great.”

“Well, of course you think that, you have _money._ When in reality, he gutted all the systems that actually make this country great,” Mildred replied in a tone as equally serious. “He gutted the healthcare system and the education system and the social welfare system…”

She looked to Kerry again, her brow furrowing. 

“What systems am I forgetting?”

“I don’t know, but you have had _way_ too much to drink,” Kerry hissed. 

“On the contrary, dear. I don’t think I’ve had enough to drink, considering how I can still recall all the ways Ronald Reagan _fucked up_ this country.”

Millicent let out an affronted gasp. Beside her, Susan and Carter were trying their best not to lose it completely. Kerry, though, just looked even more shocked by Mildred’s behavior and immediately started trying to turn Mildred around. 

“I’m so sorry. I am _so_ sorry,” she said quickly to Millicent as she gently pushed Mildred out of the conversation. “She’s not usually- We are so grateful for this and for your patronage. Really, we are.”

Kerry continued to apologize profusely as she led Mildred towards an open table. Susan excused herself to follow, but Carter stayed put. 

Millicent glanced at him, her look of displeasure drastically intensified at what she perceived as brazen disrespect. He met her gaze, but shrugged. 

“She has a point, you know.”

Mildred was so tipsy that it took her a long moment of being led away from the conversation to realize that she was, in fact, being led away from the conversation. 

“Kerry, I was in the middle of a conversation,” she said firmly as Kerry led her to an empty chair. 

“Yes, and if that conversation went on any longer, you could’ve cost us all the funding for the clinic we have,” Kerry replied in a tone that matched Mildred’s. 

“Well, it’s not _my_ fault that your primary benefactor believes that a Hollywood hooligan was an effective President,” Mildred said with a frown. “Perhaps if she’d kept a tight grip on certain things while in bed with him, you wouldn’t need a free clinic.”

Mildred moved her (empty) wine glass to her other hand and motioned as if squeezing something tightly. Kerry flushed an even deeper shade of red. 

“Oh my God. Sit down.”

Mildred sat her wine glass down on the table and started to sit down, but stopped herself. She glanced back at Kerry, a look of deepest suspicion on her face. 

“Hang on…. You didn’t stop me because you… because you voted for him, did you?” She raised a finger at Kerry. “Kerry Elizabeth, I don’t care if you’re an adult, I _will_ ground you-”

“Of course I didn’t vote for Reagan,” Kerry said, rolling her eyes. “What do you take me for?”

Mildred let out a visible sigh of relief. Her stern point changed into an affectionate stroke of Kerry’s cheek. 

“Oh, of course you didn’t dear. You’re too smart for that,” she said lovingly. “And your father and I raised you better than that.”

Kerry fought the urge to roll her eyes and instead nodded. Mildred nodded in reply and finally took her seat. When Kerry picked up the empty wine glass and turned for the bar, she perked up. 

“Get me another glass of that Chardonnay, would you, dear?”

Kerry made pointed eye contact with her and raised her brow. 

“I will get you water.”

Mildred gave her a look of disapproval, but Kerry didn’t notice as she was too busy glancing around. 

“Ms. Knight?” she said, stopping the blonde med student in her tracks.

Lucy turned around at the sound of her voice. When she spotted Kerry looking at her expectantly, she hurried over. 

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Would you watch my mother for me?” 

Kerry gestured towards where Mildred sat at the table. Her disapproval had only been momentary, apparently, as when Lucy looked at her, she was smiling serenely, her elbow resting on the table and her chin in her hand. 

“Uh…. Yes, ma’am.”

Kerry muttered a word of thanks and turned to where Susan had already started for the bar. Lucy watched her for a moment before taking a seat opposite Mildred at the table. 

“It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Weaver,” she greeted with a smile. 

“And it is lovely to see you, too, my dear,” Mildred replied graciously before pausing for a long moment. She leaned forwards slightly towards Lucy. “I’m sorry, dear. Have we met?”

Susan watched Lucy’s confusion from afar before Kerry caught up with her and turned around again, smiling to herself. 

“Who knew your mom was so… _politically belligerent_ when she got drunk?” she asked Kerry in a low voice as they joined the line for the bar. 

“Me. I knew that,” Kerry stated in (self-directed) frustration. “I just didn’t think about it because I didn’t think she was going to get this drunk.”

“You mean she has done this _before?”_ Susan asked in full of awe.

This time, Kerry _did_ roll her eyes. 

“According to certain sources, if she wasn’t cut off early enough at certain work parties in the fifties, she very well could have landed herself on Joe McCarthy’s list.”

Susan’s awe deepened at this statement. Being on Senator Joseph McCarthy’s list of alleged Communist sympathizers (a.k.a. his political opponents, anyone left of him politically, gay people, etc.) was highly feared throughout the “Red Scare” that gripped post-war America in the early 1950s. Though considered a witch-hunt by modern standards, it nevertheless ruined the lives and careers of many innocent people at its height. 

“Who told you that?” Susan asked, intrigued. “Did she tell you that?”

“No. My dad did. Which means take it with a grain of salt,” Kerry replied with a shrug. “But he did always end those conversations by telling me that, if anyone asked, they always paid their taxes and made sure to vote, though. so maybe he wasn’t actually kidding after all.”

Susan nodded, but the longer she thought about it, the more suspicion began to set in.

“What was it she did again?” she asked slowly. “Wasn’t she a teacher or something?”

Kerry nodded. 

“Yeah. She taught physics. Well, she taught _calculus_ and convinced them that meant she could teach physics.”

Susan opened her mouth to reply and then paused, frowning. 

“What do you mean she ‘convinced’ them that meant she could teach physics?”

“Because she wasn’t licensed as a science teacher. She was licensed as a _math_ teacher,” Kerry told her. “But the only job left in the district she wanted to work in was as a physics teacher, and she figured the subjects were close enough, she could get away with it. By the time they figured out it wasn’t technically within her licensure, test scores had risen so much, they didn’t care.”

Susan nodded slowly for a moment before shaking her head to get herself back on topic.

“Still. Do you _really_ think that getting drunk at a public school Christmas party really could have landed her on Joe McCarthy’s list?” she asked skeptically. 

“She worked for the schools, but my dad worked for local government, so it was still possible,” Kerry pointed out. “But even if it wasn’t, she’d have found a way.”

Mildred’s head pounded as she slowly ambled down the hallway towards the dining room. As much as she loved her grandchildren, she was rather relieved that they appeared to either still be asleep or otherwise occupied and therefore not running about or being loud as they usually were.

“Good morning,” Kerry greeted from the kitchen as Mildred dropped into a seat at the end of the table. “I made some coffee. I figured you’d need it.”

Mildred tried to nod, but just as quickly raised a hand to her head, as the motion made the room spin. Kerry watched in both concern and a bit of amusement as she set a mug of black coffee in front of her and took a seat in the chair to Mildred’s left.

“So, which one was it?” Mildred asked as she raised her head. “Reagan? Nixon? Hoover?”

“Hoover?” Kerry repeated with a questioning look. “I’ve never heard you talk about Hoover before.”

“Well, if he’d done things differently, we might not have had the Depression we did,” Mildred remarked tiredly. 

Kerry considered this for a moment and then gave a shrug of acknowledgement before replying, “It was Reagan.”

Mildred gave another tiny nod before taking a sip from her coffee. Then, she glanced at Kerry, a slightly hesitant look on her face. 

“What did I say?”

“Just that he, and I quote, ‘fucked up the country.’ Which you said in front of our biggest donor who had just said that she’d slept with him,” Kerry informed her. “And you suggested to me that if she’d kept a tight grip on certain things, we might not need a free clinic.”

Kerry mimed the same squeezing motion Mildred had made the night before. And, though she shook her head apologetically, Kerry had the sense that she stood by it.

“I’ll be sure to write an apology note. And make another contribution to the clinic,” Mildred said after a moment. “I hope I didn’t cause you too much headache.”

“It might have caused a little bit,” Kerry conceded, “but certainly not as much as the one you have right now.”

Mildred closed her eyes and took another sip of her coffee, not even trying to deny the pounding in her head. Kerry just chuckled. 

“Your father always did limit me at those sorts of things, didn’t he?” Mildred thought aloud. “I guess I took that for granted.”

“He told me that you didn’t so much lose your inhibitions when you got drunk so much as you ‘held up the harsh mirror of reality to the things everyone was trying to forget,’” Kerry said in her best Henry Weaver impression. 

Mildred’s brow rose. 

“He told you that?”

“And a lot more,” Kerry said a slightly mischievous look Annie often wore. 

Mildred narrowed her eyes at Kerry as she took another sip of her coffee. Then, she heaved a sigh. 

“He never did that sort of thing. Drunk or not. And I always wondered if he didn’t regret it sometimes. That he settled with me instead of someone… more like him. Someone more patient or gentle. Or _quiet.”_

Instinctively, Kerry reached out and took Mildred’s hand across the table. 

“Momma, you know he never regretted anything,” she said with quiet sincerity. “You were the only person he ever wanted.”

Mildred looked at Kerry. At the look of genuine concern and ready reassurance on her daughter’s face that Mildred knew came from the very many they were talking about, she smiled gently and patted Kerry’s hand. 

“Thank you, my love,” she said softly. “It’s a side effect of the hangover. I always worried about that the morning after. Even when he was alive.”

Kerry appeared slightly reassured by Mildred’s words, but there was still a slight furrow to her brow. A furrow that deepened when Mildred heaved another heavier sigh. 

“I miss him, Kerry. So much. _So_ much,” Mildred said in a voice barely more than a whisper. “I think that’s the reason I drank as much as I did last night.”

“Because you miss him?” Kerry asked, her concern growing at the thought of this possible new coping mechanism. 

Mildred, though, just inhaled deeply and shook her head as much as she could without causing her head to throb even more. 

“It was the wine. It tasted like a brand he used to like. He’d buy a bottle once every so often when he went shopping. And we’d sit together at night and have a glass together. It got a bit harder after you came into our lives, but he’d always keep a bottle in a high cupboard. Should the opportunity arise.”

Mildred lingered in her reminiscence for a long moment before her wistful smile faded. 

“It’s been over five years since he died,” she said before shaking her head again. “I never thought I’d make it this long without him. I never thought I’d _want_ to.”

Mildred took another moment of contemplation before looking at Kerry, who was looking at her sadly. To this, Mildred just smiled and squeezed her hand. 

“But I knew I was meant to be here for you. Because you needed me. You and Annie... And Michael, I supposed. And eventually Susan and Suzie, too.”

Though Mildred had smiled, Kerry felt there was a lingering ‘but’ that was going unsaid. But she didn’t press Mildred on it and, instead, just let Mildred squeeze her hand.

They sat there for a long moment, Mildred’s hand holding Kerry’s tightly, their touch communicating for them in place of words. 

Then, she raised her brow. 

“I should say, though, dear,” she said, looking Kerry in the eye, “that, since you’re here and he’s not, I need you to promise me you will never let me do this again.”

This statement finally made Kerry’s face break into a wide grin. 

“Oh, don’t worry,Mom,” she said, squeezing Mildred’s hand back. “I already decided that last night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday!
> 
> I teased drunk!Mildred at the end of chapter one and am only more than happy to share her with all of you. This idea has been in my head for a while, but was prompted after everybodyknows-everybodydies asked what would happen if Mildred went head to head with Millicent Carter after the second in an impromptu series (?) of Mildred taking down _ER_ characters parents. As both Millicent Carter and Mildred Lewis are very refined and headstrong older ladies, I figured it would be a very equal face-off. But just as I was thinking about what that would look like, I thought it would be much better if Mildred was drunk. I then recalled Millicent Carter hinting at interacting with Reagan, and deciced that Mildred The-Last-Time-Minnesota-Elected-A-Republican-President-I-Didn't-Live-There Weaver would have _many_ things to say about it.
> 
> (For anyone interested, the impromptu series of Mildred telling off parents began with a canon-ish-compliant[ telling off of Florina Lopez during the custody battle of baby Henry](https://bwayfan25.tumblr.com/post/629978580643938305/re-your-post-about-sandys-family-invalidating). The second was in response to an ask from lizzycorday if I'd ever considered [Cookie Lewis meeting Kerry, which turned into her meeting Mildred](https://bwayfan25.tumblr.com/post/637136949969354752/responsibility). I don't have any more planned, but who knows.)
> 
> Since drunk!Kerry tends to get very emotional, as I was thinking through what a drunk!Mildred would look like, I wanted it to be a bit different. For one, she would _not_ be the lightweight I think Kerry is, but more so, I think she'd just be a lot more confrontational. Which would be wild, since Mildred is no stranger to a confrontation as it is. The more emotional part we get in with hungover!Mildred wasn't expected, actually. It just hit me while I was talking through some dialogue, and, as always happens, if it fits, it fits. 
> 
> Also, this is a small thing, but I was thinking about what Kerry calls Mildred a lot in this chapter. I think it's come up a couple times in other interactions between them, but Kerry's standard name for her mom is Mom. It's grown-up. It's serious. It's normal. But every so often, particularly in moments of vulnerability or emotion (or both), Kerry calls her Momma. This happens in the little one-shot I wrote of [Kerry cuddling with Mildred for ER Appreciation Week 2020](https://bwayfan25.tumblr.com/post/633954023545978880/er-appreciation-week-day-5-favorite-mini-arc), it happens in this chapter when Mildred starts thinking about Henry, and it happens the most in Chapter 22 of "matriachs" (a.k.a [Exodos](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24111415/chapters/59700172)). I just feel like Kerry Weaver thought (or, more likely _decided)_ she grew out of calling Mildred "Momma," but she can't help it sometimes. (Personally, I am an adult and if I call my mother anything other than Momma except in rare instances when I'm introducing her at a professional thing, I will explode. Fun fact: That's why I spell it that way in my writing because No Other Spelling Is Correct In My Book.)
> 
> Anyways, that's it for today. I haven't quite decided which one comes next, but I think it'll be a bit on the lighter side. And feature more Mildred, because we all need more Mildred in our lives. 
> 
> Until next time!


	5. At Bat

“Alright, dear. Remember to keep your knuckles lined up when you swing,” Mildred said as she stood slightly crouched behind Annie, helping the soon-to-be-seven-year-old hold the bat. “And choke up a little bit there.”

“Choke? I don’t want to choke!” Annie exclaimed, panic clear in her voice.

“No, no, dear,” Mildred said reassuringly. “That just means to grip the bat a little higher up.”

Annie let out a sigh of relief and allowed her grandmother to help adjust her grip. 

“Now, when you swing, you’re going to turn your back foot but keep your front foot forward while you swing your arms. Just like this,” Mildred explained, before gently guiding Annie as she turned. 

“I don’t move my legs?” Annie asked, frowning as Mildred guided her back into the starting position.

“Correct. You just turn your upper body. Your back leg might turn a little bit, but not your front leg,” Mildred informed her. “That means that it shouldn’t hurt. But if it does, tell me. Okay?”

Annie nodded enthusiastically and then started the swing once more, only her upper body and right leg turning as she practiced. 

After a few more practice swings, Mildred asked if she was ready to try with the tee.

“Yeah! Yeah!”

“Okay. I’ll do it with you the first time,” Mildred replied, stepping back up next to Annie. “On three. One… two… three!”

Together, Mildred and Annie swung at the ball on the tee. Bat and ball connected with a satisfying  _ crack _ , leaving Susan to chase after it as it headed towards third base.

“I did it!” Annie cheered, looking up at Mildred.

“Yes, you did!” Mildred said, beaming as she gave Annie’s shoulders a squeeze. “Excellent job, my dear.”

“Can I do one by myself?”

“Of course.”

Mildred stepped back from the tee, leaving Annie to take a couple more practice swings. Mildred then picked up her glove from where she’d hung it over a fence post just in time for Susan to throw the ball back to her.

Annie took a couple more turns at the tee before Kerry called her back to the dugout to eat the hotdog just delivered by Mark and Carter. Mildred then took her chance to raise the tee and take a couple swings for herself. And, though it had been several decades since the last time she swung a bat and her aging body grew tired after only a handful of hits, she still managed to send Susan all over the outfield. 

Once she was finished with her hits, she stretched a little bit before crooking a finger at her daughter. 

Kerry frowned and then glanced behind her, as if trying to figure out who Mildred was gesturing too. When Mildred nodded and added a firm  _ “Yes, you,”  _ Kerry’s frown deepened.

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked as she approached Mildred, who’d raised a finger at Susan to keep her in the field. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Mildred said, nodding. “I called you over here so I can teach you how to swing a baseball bat.”

Kerry stared at her for a moment and then let out a laugh.

“That’s not necessary,” she replied, shaking her head. “I’m not playing.”

“I understand that,” Mildred said, raising her eyebrows. “But since it took until last year just to teach you the  _ rules _ of baseball, I figured I’m a bit behind.”

“Well, all I need to know is the rules.”

“And how to swing a bat,” Mildred finished. “And don’t give me that look. If Annie can do it, so can you.”

Kerry continued to give her a look regardless of this, but it was no use on the woman who  _ taught _ her the look. 

“Mom, I do not need to learn how to swing a bat.”

“Yes, you  _ do,” _ Mildred pressed. “Now, come here. And don’t make me tell you again.”

Though still firmly opposed to this for more reasons than one, Kerry couldn’t help but obey a  _ “Don’t make me tell you again,” _ so she reluctantly joined Mildred at home plate.

Mildred ignored Kerry’s disgruntled muttering as she took her crutch from her and set it against the back fence. Then, she stepped behind Kerry, who had picked up the bat and was looking at it scathingly.

“Alright. Start by setting it against your right shoulder,” Mildred instructed, patting the shoulder in question. 

Kerry did as she was told, allowing the barrel of the bat to rest against her right clavicle. 

“Good. Now, put both hands on the grip and line your first knuckles up,” Mildred said as she stepped around Kerry. “Yes, perfect. Just like that. Now, pick it straight up off your shoulder. Don’t move your wrist or elbows. Just lift it straight up.”

Kerry again did as she was told. Mildred nodded encouragingly.

“That’s it. Now, imagine you’re throwing the knob of the bat directly at the tee.”

“This knob?” Kerry asked, motioning to the small end of the bat with her pinky finger.

“Yes. You pretend you’re throwing that directly at the tee,” Mildred confirmed, nodding. “Pretend like you’re throwing the end of the bat towards the ball and then straighten your wrists.”

Kerry frowned as she moved the knob of the bat down towards the empty tee and then straightened her wrists, which brought the barrel of the bat down.

“Wonderful, dear,” Mildred said as Kerry practiced the motion a few more times. “And the last step, just like I told Annie: Your left foot doesn’t turn; only your back foot does. It turns at the sametime that your arms are moving. This is the way women are supposed to swing because our power comes from our hips and not our arms. But if you find it hurts, just use your upper body.”

Kerry nodded and hesitantly tested turning her right foot while keeping her left foot turned to straight. Mildred watched her face carefully for any sign of pain, but instead, only found confusion.

“Does it hurt?” Mildred asked, frowning.

“Not necessarily,” Kerry replied slowly as she tested the movement again. “It’s more like… It just feels wrong. Like I’m not supposed to move like this.”

“Well, you’re not going to stay turned like that for very long,” Mildred said as Kerry turned back to face her. “I just want to make sure it doesn’t hurt.”

Kerry confirmed again that it didn’t hurt before taking a few (slow) attempts at combining both the swing and the footwork. 

Mildred watched her closely for a moment. Satisfied with what she saw, she fetched one of the baseballs Susan had thrown back to her and placed it on the tee. 

“Alright. Just like you were doing, but, now, throw the end of the bat at the ball instead of the tee,” Mildred instructed before taking a large step back. 

Kerry shook her head and let out a huff, but, nevertheless, set the bat back on her shoulder. She lifted it up, ensuring her knuckles were lined up, and then slowly went through the steps of the swing. 

She’d brought down the barrel of the bat as if she was going to make contact, but stopped short of hitting it. Then, she rewound the steps back to setting the bat on her shoulder, before lifting it once more and repeating the swing. 

This swing was faster than the others. Relying on her upper body strength more so than power from the turn, the bat met the ball, resulting in a decent ground ball aimed between second and third base. 

“Not bad for a first time,” Mildred said, nodding appreciatively. “Thank you for indulging me.”

Kerry rolled her eyes in reply, but it was missed as Mildred picked up and moved the tee out of the batter’s box. 

When she was close enough, Kerry held the bat out to her, thinking she’d swap it for her crutch. Mildred didn’t notice this either, though, as once the tee was set aside, she started for the pitcher’s mound. 

“Uh, Mom?” Kerry asked once Mildred turned around. “What are you doing?”

“It’s the next step,” Mildred replied. “In learning how to hit a baseball.”

“I just learned how to hit a baseball,” Kerry said with a gesture towards the tee. “That’s what I agreed to.”

“The tee was just a warm-up, dear. Just to get the swing down,” Mildred explained. “But you’re an adult. You can do better than hit off a tee.”

At the realization that this statement implied Mildred was going to throw a baseball at her, Kerry recoiled. Mildred just put her hands on her hips and gave Kerry a look of exasperation. 

“Relax, dear. I’m not going to leave you there by yourself,” she called out before turning towards the outfield to wave Susan in. 

Susan jogged in from where she’d been standing in the grass just beyond second base. She paused at the pitcher’s mound to receive instructions from Mildred before continuing on towards Kerry. 

“Susan’s going to help you time when to swing,” Mildred shouted as Susan stepped behind Kerry. “Do just as you did before.”

Susan took a step forward towards Kerry so she was about six inches behind her, but Mildred was not having it. She waved Susan closer in until she was practically hugging Kerry from behind (which made Kerry’s face turn as red as the sleeves of Susan’s jersey). 

“Just relax,” Susan whispered as she helped take grip of the bat. 

Kerry shivered at the feeling of Susan’s breath down her neck, which made Susan smile and Kerry scowl. But before Kerry could hiss,  _ “Don’t enjoy this,” _ they both caught sight of Mildred holding the ball up to them as a signal she was about to pitch. 

They both inhaled at the same time as they watched Mildred throw the ball towards them. Then, with Susan guiding Kerry’s timing, they swung together as the bat approached home plate. 

There was a  _ crack _ as the ball was sent flying back towards the pitcher’s mound. Mildred caught it easily before Susan and Kerry broke apart. 

“Very good job, my dear,” Mildred lauded, giving Kerry a thumb’s up. “Good hit.”

Kerry, who was clearly very proud of herself for successfully making contact and also clearly trying very hard to hide it, rolled her eyes again. She motioned to Susan. 

“I had help.”

“No, that was mostly you,” Susan pointed out, raising her hands defensively. “All I did was help turn you.”

Kerry gave her a look but nevertheless preened a little bit before turning back to her mother. 

“So, if this were a game, this is when I’d run to first, right?” she called out in question before pointing to the base to her right. 

“Well, dear, if this were a game, you’d be out,” Mildred called back. “But, yes. That is the general idea.”

“Out?” Kerry asked in shock. “What do you mean I’d be out? Don’t you have to throw it for me to be out?”

“Usually. But, in this case, I caught it.” Mildred held up the baseball in her glove. “Which also makes you out.”

Kerry let out her biggest huff yet just as Susan handed her her crutch. When she caught sight of the smirk on Susan’s face, Kerry frowned. 

“What?”

“Just that it’s your very first at bat and you’re already arguing with the umpire,” Susan said with a sigh. “And, honestly Kerry? I’d expect nothing less.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! I hope you're having a good day so far. 
> 
> I'm sorry I'm not updating as often as I'd planned to. As I said in a tumblr post, I felt very "No Thoughts, Head Empty" this week thanks to a work thing that required a lot of thought and staying late to get stuff done by the deadline. I'm hoping to pick it up at least a little bit as I've got ideas for some of the prompts that have been submitted that I want to do. I also have some non-prompt ideas that I'd like to play around with as well. I think the next chapter is gonna be one of those and, fair warning, it'll be on the sadder side. 
> 
> Another reason for the delay was that I'd gotten an idea/ had a lucid dream on Wednesday that fleshed itself out during some of my commutes this week and ended up turning into a 3,000+ word story. I haven't posted it anywhere, but I do[ have a Google Drive link](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YPD_weyurMhRpKaURpHyB2Ynu31Fve_frDgvew6P3WU/edit?usp=sharing) in case anyone wants to read it. It's another AU idea (shocker) and is told in a different style than my usual stuff, but I'm proud of how it turned out. 
> 
> Anyways, this was on the shorter side of things, but does give you a detailed description of the proper way to swing a bat. Technically, this is the proper way to swing a bat in _softball_ _,_ which is why there is a comment that women swing from the hips, but it should work regardless of which game you're playing. Like the baseball episode chapter in "matriarchs", this reall makes me want to play softball again. We're reaching February, which, for someone reason, my brain always tells me is when we need to start thinking about that. It's likely due to that being when conditioning started when I played in high school, but even though the last high school season I played was my sophomore year _ten years ago,_ my brain hasn't figured out that I'm adult who lives in Ohio and therefore am lucky if I get to play in May.
> 
> Hope you're all doing well! Have a good rest of your day. 
> 
> Until next time.


	6. To Be a Blessing

It was one of those days where the lake seemed to go on forever. Logically, Carter knew it didn’t. If you kept going, you’d eventually hit Michigan or Canada. But on days like this when the clouds hung low over the horizon, it was hard to imagine there could ever be land on the other side.

He didn’t know how long he’d been staring at it. He only knew that his concentration broke at the familiar sound of uneven footsteps headed his way. And, as expected, when he finally tore his gaze away from the rolling waves, he saw Kerry headed in the direction of his bench.

“May I join you?” she called out once within earshot. 

Carter shrugged, but nevertheless gestured towards the open seat. She smiled appreciatively and took a seat on the other end. 

She said nothing as he turned his attention back towards the lake. She just turned her attention there too, enjoying the way the slight breeze took the edge off the early June sun.

“Did they sick you on me?”

Kerry glanced towards Carter, who was still staring out over the lake.

“Who exactly would be sicking me on you?” 

He shrugged again.

“Susan? Tonya? _Pratt?”_ Carter offered. “I figured they sent you out here to get me since I haven’t come back from lunch yet.”

“I see. But no. No one sicked me on you. I was just out taking a walk,” Kerry informed him mildly. “Needed some fresh air before my meetings this afternoon. I think a lot of them could be phone calls, honestly, but people want to meet in person. Something about seeing the person you’re meeting with. And who knows? Maybe someday they’ll invent a way for us to be able to touch base face-to-face without them physically coming to my office… or needing to go to theirs.”

Carter did not respond, but Kerry didn’t really expect him to. Instead, she let silence fall between them, save for the sound of the waves breaking against the shore down below. 

A few minutes passed without either saying a word. Kerry felt it a comfortable silence, but Carter felt the tension building as they sat there. And, sure enough, after a few long moments, Kerry asked the question he’d been dreading.

“How are you doing?” 

It was a question he’d been dreading not because he was tired of people asking (though he was), but rather because he really didn’t know what to say. Grief following the end of someone’s life was never easy no matter what, but it was made all the worse when the life that had ended never had the chance to begin. 

And though Carter trusted Kerry to understand this, he couldn’t bring himself to say it outloud. So, he just gave another shrug.

“I’m fine.”

To her credit, Kerry did not believe him in the slightest, but she knew better than to tell him that. Rather, she just nodded and took a few quiet moments to think of what to say. Once her thoughts had been gathered, she took a deep breath and began.

“I had siblings once. Two girls and a boy. My parents' biological children. They were born in the… the late thirties, I’m pretty sure. Which means, had they lived, they’d have been old enough to be my parents. But none of them did. My mother carried the first girl to twenty-eight weeks, the second to twenty-nine, and the boy all the way to thirty-seven. But with each one, she woke up one day and just knew they were gone.

“After the first one, they told her the best thing to do was get pregnant again. As soon as she could. And they told her that after the second too. She ended up pregnant three times in two years and not once did she get to bring any of her babies home.”

The very thought of carrying a baby for that long only to leave the hospital without it - and the thought that that was what Carter was going through right now - nearly made Kerry choke up. 

She thought of all she’d endured when she’d been pregnant so long ago and how it was all worth it to get to hold Annie in her arms. She thought of Susan and the terror of that Valentine’s Day night and how close she was to losing both her and Charlie. And, of course, she thought of her mother and how deeply those losses had affected her even forty, fifty, _sixty_ years out. 

She glanced at Carter, who was still staring out over the water. He looked years older than he had only a few months prior. 

“My dad told me that she didn’t want to hold him,” Kerry found herself saying, a slight hitch in her voice. “They offered her to before they took him away, but she refused. My dad thought she felt like she failed him. That it was her fault. And he knew and she knew too that it wasn’t. That it just happened sometimes, but… but that didn’t change anything.”

Kerry sucked in breath. Even now, over six years after Mildred’s passing, it was still incredibly difficult to talk about her for long periods of time without a wave of grief washing over her. And this particular subject made her ache for her dad just as much as it did her mom, as Henry was the teller of stories and bearer of memories that Mildred could never share. 

“She didn’t do anything for a long time. A whole year, actually,” Kerry continued. “She took a leave of absence from her job and everything and just… laid in bed. All year. My dad kept working because he felt one of them had to, but every moment he wasn’t working, he was taking care of her. 

“But he hurt, too. He told me that, but I would’ve known even if he hadn’t. You could always hear it in his voice. See it in his eyes.”

Kerry glanced at Carter again. She could tell he was listening just as she could tell that same pain in his eyes that she’d seen in her father’s all those years ago. But just as she could remember that pain, she could remember the little bit of hope when he told her what happened next.

“But he said that one day, several months after mom miscarried the last time, he realized something,” she said quietly. “He realized that he was carrying all these dreams, all these hopes that he had for them. And so much of his grief was wrapped up in the fact that they never got the chance to live them. So, he decided that, since they never had the chance, he would do it for them. All the things he wanted them to be - kind, faithful, in service to others - that was what _he_ would be. For them. 

“And it didn’t solve everything. He wasn’t immediately absolved of the grief. The pain didn’t immediately go away. And he told me even back then, he knew it never truly would. But he had a way to use it. He had a sense of purpose and he said that kept him going when he felt like everything had ground to a stop.”

For a moment, as she tried to pass the wisdom of a grieving father from Henry through her to Carter, she was fourteen again, sitting on the couch in Minneapolis, listening to him talk. She could feel his hand rubbing her arm gently as she lay cuddled up in his side as he told her the story of all that had come before her. Even then, she’d always wondered how he could tell her such a sad story without crying and, even more so, how he could have so much grief inside him and still be able to joke and laugh and tease the way he did. 

She was pretty sure she’d asked him that then. He’d just laughed and told her that if he couldn’t find something to laugh about, then there was no point in going on. 

And, now that she thought about it, that was very similar to what she’d told Susan a few years ago following the pandemic scare in the ER. Susan held a lot of grief inside her as well (some of which Kerry was sure she’d held even long before they’d come into each other's lives), but she could always find something to tease her about. 

Perhaps that was why Mildred had taken such a liking to her when they first met, Kerry thought. She saw something of Henry in her.

Kerry took a deep breath and looked out over the lake. 

“Annie doesn’t say ‘may they rest in peace’ when someone dies,” she thought out loud. “‘Rest in peace’ is a Christian thing, not a Jewish one. She says ‘may their memory be a blessing.’ And whenever she says that, I always think of him. 

“He took their memories and turned them into blessings. For himself, for my mother, and for all the people he helped. And, eventually, for me.”

Silence fell between them again, save for the waves and the occasional squawk of a seagull. The breeze carried the sounds of laughter from the beach a ways down the shore. 

“I don’t know what to do for her.”

Kerry looked at Carter. 

He was no longer looking out over the water, thinking as he always did how far the waves would carry his son’s ashes as the currents flowed. He now had his eyes closed as the waves of grief threatened to drag him under. 

“I don’t know what to do for her,” he repeated with a slight shake of her head. “She doesn’t want to talk about it and… and I don’t blame her. But I don’t know where else to turn. I can’t go to my family, because they don’t approve of her. And they don’t really approve of me. And part of me thinks they wouldn’t have approved of him. But… _God._ I just…” 

Carter dragged his hands down his face.

“I feel like I was so close to having a family - a _real_ family - and it just got…. It just got yanked out from underneath me. And now there’s nothing left.”

Though he couldn’t see it with his eyes still closed, Kerry gave him a look of skepticism.

“Your family may have begun with the Carters, but that doesn’t mean they’re the end of it. Same with her. You may have started a family together, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t have any before that. Your family…. Your family is much, much bigger than that.”

Kerry took another moment to gather her thoughts. 

“We liken family to a tree, but family is not a tree. It’s an entire _forest_ of trees. Branches cross over each other. They get tangled up. Some branches die off. Other new branches grow.”

Even from just the little she could see of his face from the angle she was sitting, Kerry could see him fighting back tears. 

“John,” she said in such a gentle voice that Carter almost lost it right then and there, “the Carters, Kem - they’re only a small part of your forest. They’re only one part of your family. And you have such a big family. 

“You’ve got me. You’ve got Susan. And Annie and Suzie and Charlie. And Abby and Luka and Elizabeth. And Lucy and Jing-Mei and Tonya and Gallant and Pratt. And even Robert.”

At the implication that Robert Romano considered him family, Carter let out an unconscious snort. Kerry chuckled and rolled her eyes.

“I know, I know,” she said, raising a hand defensively. “But he has his days.”

After their moment of chuckling died down, Kerry gently took one of his hands in hers. 

“In any other time, under any other circumstance, I would tell you that having a forest as vast as yours means you’ve got a lot of branches to hang onto when you need them. And while I still believe that’s true, I know that in times like these, the thought of hanging on is too much. Your arms are tired and whether you’re losing your grip or just ready to let go, you don’t know. 

“But that’s another benefit of having a forest as large and tightly woven as yours. Because in the times when you can’t hang on anymore, you can trust that there’s a strong net beneath you to catch you when you fall.”

Carter nodded, the tears he’d been trying hard not to let fall pricking at the corners of his eyes. 

Kerry wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Without a moment of hesitation, he leaned into the hug and just broke down. 

_Several months later…_

Carter glanced up and down the hallway, scanning for the assistant whose desk was currently vacant. When he didn’t appear to shoo him away, he poked his head into the Chief of Staff’s office. 

Said Chief of Staff was sitting in her desk chair with her head leaned back and her eyes closed. At the sound of footsteps approaching, she sat up and fixed him with a look of expectant question (or in other words her “explain yourself” look). 

“Can we talk?” 

“That depends,” Kerry asked with a sigh. “Is it about insurance reimbursement rates, changes to the pharmacy’s formulary, or the school telling me that another one of my children was publicly shaming their guest speaker?”

Carter chuckled. 

“No.”

“Then, by all means, have a seat,” Kerry said, motioning towards the empty chairs in front of her. 

Carter muttered a word of thanks as he sat down, but was still chuckling to himself. 

“What was that last one about?”

Kerry responded by rolling her eyes. 

“Apparently the elementary school has this guest speaker from some local organization that comes once every couple years to talk to students about working with people who are ‘differently abled,’” Kerry said, putting air quotes around the last two words. “And every time she comes, one of the girls politely… well, I don’t want to say _corrects_ her because that would imply she’s wrong. They just tell her that the language she’s using isn’t widely accepted and point out when she stereotypes or infantilizes disabled people.”

“So, when she’s wrong,” Carter finished. 

“Yes. When she’s wrong,” Kerry conceded with a shrug. “But the school always calls me afterwards and tells me to ‘address this behavior at home-’”

“As if you’re not the one teaching them how to do it?”

“Exactly. Exactly,” Kerry replied emphatically. “I mean… we’ve been at this for five years. First with Annie then with Suzie and now with Charlie. I don’t know why they expect my answer to change. ‘No, I’m not going to tell them not to do it. Hire another speaker.’”

Kerry shook her head, which just made Carter chuckle again. She allowed him his moment of amusement before once again fixing him with an expectant look. 

“So, what’s going on?” she asked, raising her brow. 

He took a deep breath. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot over the last year or so,” he began in carefully measured voice. “About… about what you told me about your dad and how he wanted…. About how he turned the dreams he had for the, for the children who… for your _siblings_ into blessings. How he used his hopes for them to do good things in the world. The kind of things he’d hoped they’d do.”

Kerry nodded. Carter sat up a little straighter.

“Well, I think I’ve figured out what I want to do,” he told her sincerely. “And I went to Carol first, but she said I needed to come to you.”

Carter drew in a deep breath and sat forward in his chair. 

“I want to buy the clinic.”

For a moment, Kerry’s expression remained neutral. Then, she narrowed her eyes slightly.

“I think I know where you’re going with this,” she said slowly. “But in the case that I’m not, I should just say out that I don’t care how big the donation is. Naming rights don’t actually work that way.”

Carter quickly shook his head, both to indicate that wasn’t what he meant and also to get his thoughts back in order. 

“No, I meant…” He paused. “The clinic is a 501(c)(3) independent nonprofit, right?”

Kerry began to nod, but then seemed to second guess herself. 

“Yes,” she answered (uncertainly). “Well, it’s independent in that it’s got it’s own Board and financials, but it falls under our tax-exemption. So, 501(c)(3) yes, but independent, no.”

“Okay.” Carter took a second to regroup and then sat forward again. “I want to make it an independent nonprofit. And I want to make it bigger.”

He inhaled deeply. 

“The only reason I ever met Kem - the only reason he ever existed - was because of my work in the Congo. Because there was work to be done there. But Chicago would have been his home just as much as Africa would have been, and there’s a lot of work to do here, too. We’ve known that for years and we’ve seen how much of an impact even just one free clinic can have. I want to make that impact even _bigger.”_

The more Carter explained, the more energized he became.

“I’ve been doing research and there are these clinics called Federally Qualified Health Centers, or FQHCs. And they have to meet certain criteria of the kind of services they provide, but if they do, then they get funding from the government to serve the underserved. 

“But it’s not just medical services. They have to provide dental and vision and women’s health and behavioral health and even pharmacy services. And by providing them to uninsured and Medicaid patients, they get special reimbursement rates and drug pricing. So long as they provide them for free or on an income-based scale.

“And, in addition to getting FQHC status, I say we look into getting Ryan White funding. That would pay for HIV care for underserved patients, and could even help things expand into case management and other social services.”

Before Kerry could say anything, he let out an almost derisive laugh.

“And since Gamma put me in charge of the Carter Foundation, we can use grants from that to get us up to snuff for federal qualifications. And probably to supplement clinic expenses so we can provide free care to anyone who needs it, even if they can’t afford the sliding fee.”

Carter made for something in the bag slung over his shoulder, but then cursed himself. 

_“Shoot,”_ he said, clenching his fists. “I wrote up a whole sustainability plan that outlined all of that in detail, but I forgot I gave it to Carol and didn’t think to make a second copy.”

“A sustainability plan?” Kerry said, clearly blow away.

“Just for the first couple years. So, you could see how it would sustain itself longer term.”

Kerry blinked. 

“I’m very impressed you’d even think of that,” she said in a tone that matched her words.

Carter gave a slightly sheepish smile. 

“It was Susan’s idea. She said every time I used the word ‘sustainability,’ it would make you three times as likely to accept my proposal,” he admitted. “In which case, sustainability, sustainability, sustainability.”

Kerry rolled her eyes. 

“You know, as much as she teases for stuff like that, she knows what I’m talking about. Which means she listens to me.”

Carter smiled as Kerry rolled her eyes once more and sat back in her chair. 

“So?” he asked, hesitantly hopeful. “What do you think?” 

Kerry gave him a smile of soft pride.

“I think it’s a great idea. And one you’ve clearly pored a lot of time and thought into.”

He smiled back at her for a moment before the smile faded. He took another deep breath. 

“There is one caveat…” When Kerry raised her brow in question, he said, “I want to name it after him. I mean… It's done in his honor. It should bear his name.”

Kerry’s smile softened even more. She nodded. 

“I think that’s a reasonable caveat.”

Carter let out a sigh of relief he didn’t realize he’d been holding in. He clapped his hands together. 

“So… do you have any questions?”

“Oh, I’m sure I will. Once I have your written plan in front of me,” she said in a half-playful, half-completely-serious tone. Then, she gave in with a chuckle. “I’m kidding…. Although, I do have _one_ question….”

“Of course,” Carter replied, nodding. 

Kerry cocked her head slightly in question. 

“How are you going to run an FQHC and be an Emergency Attending at the same time?” she asked. “Because I’ll be the first to tell you that healthcare administration can be just as taxing as work in the ER is. Just in a different way.”

Carter took a long moment to think. 

“Well, the good thing is that I don’t have to launch the clinic. It’s already operational and will remain operational while the expansion is underway. And I’ve already told Carol I want to keep her on as Clinic Manager because she’s too valuable of an asset to lose.”

“She is, indeed,” Kerry replied, nodding.

“So, for a while, I should be able to stay on as a full-time Attending while we sort out the legal stuff with the IRS,” Carter told her. “I’d probably cut down to part-time once that’s sorted out and we start the expansion…”

“And once it’s open?”

Carter inhaled deeply. 

“I think I’d step away completely.”

To his surprise (and relief), Kerry nodded in concurrence. 

“I figured it would be better if I talked to you before I told Tonya,” Carter added. “Though, it’ll be a couple years before I’d even move to part-time.”

“It’ll go faster than you think,” she warned. “Especially since you’ve already got a clinic to build from instead of working from the ground up.”

Carter gave a shrug of acknowledgement. 

“Any fair warning would be helpful to her, though, I’m sure,” Kerry remared. “Though, even with all the fair warning in the world, it’ll be hard to replace an Attending like you, John.”

Kerry smiled at the tinge of pink rising in Carter’s cheeks. 

“I’m proud of you, John,” she said (deepening the blush). “It’s going to be a blessing to more people than you can imagine.”

“Thank you.”

“And by extension,” she continued quietly, “he will be, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I know I said on tumblr that I've been in the middle of writing a very different (but still matriarchs inspired) AU, but I was overcome with the need to write some one-shots. The main reason for that is that this weekend is the middle of February which _requires_ me to write stuff because the days before, of, and following Valentine's Day are very important in the Weaver-Lewis-Levin family. However, I promised a sad chapter at the end of the last chapter, and while this is not the sad chapter I expected, it fulfilled the role. 
> 
> The idea for a Kerry-Carter conversation after the death of Carter's son comes from SerenaElisabet. Admittedly, when I first read the prompt, I was completely stumped as to where to take it. In this AU, Kerry has never experienced a miscarriage, and therefore doesn't have a similar connection that she could potentially have in canon. But, although she doesn't have a connection to it, another very important matriarch does.
> 
> Also, I just have to say that, though the first section should be much more Carter focused, it ended up being Kerry focused specifically because of Henry Weaver. He didn't get to play a role in the matriarchs universe other than as the subject of stories, but he features prominently in my Kerry-centric prequel fic [The Summer of '77](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554961). I characterize him as very loving (like his wife) but also very patient and kind of silly (unlike his wife). Also also, the little moment where Kerry wonders if Mildred saw something of Henry in Susan made me want to cry. I know people think that having a partner that reminds you of one of your parents is kind of weird, but it's not always negative. I'm a bit biased as my mom married a really great man who chose to be a dad to me and my younger sister and my fiancé shares a lot of his positive traits, but still. 
> 
> If you've read my other work, namely [Chapter 24 of "unexpected circumstances"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901180/chapters/47011093#workskin) and the [A Forest of Trees one-shot collection](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216501), you'll recognize the "family is a forest" monologue that Kerry gives to Carter. It remains. in my opinion, the best thing I've ever written and certainly one of the pieces I'm most proud of. And, while thinking through this chapter, I found myself saying this monologue outloud, but with a slightly different spin on it than past references. For one, this is a much heavier conversation than took place in "uc" (which wasn't light to begin with), but also takes place in very different places in their lives. When I was looking at the original monologue, it occurred to me that Susan and Kerry didn't even have Charlie at that point... let alone did Annie exist. And, as often happens in this universe, I feel like the mere existence of the character of Annie fits in well in many aspects. In this case, the 'may their memory be a blessing' part.
> 
> (Sidenote: I'm _heavily_ debating a "Just As I Am" chapter with an Annie twist like I did with If Not Now. I make no promises... but I've got ideas...)
> 
> Okay, two things before I stop rambling: 1) I know that Carter getting grants for the Carter Clinic was key in Susan's being written out of the show, but obviously that doesn't happen in this universe. But more so, I never pass up a chance to talk about health care for the underserved. (One could say it's my job.) 2) Charlie would be a Kindergartner during the second part, so please take a moment to imagine a five-year-old politely correcting some middle-aged woman about disability. (Her older sisters were at least a _little_ bit older when they did it.)
> 
> Okay that's it. Until next time.


	7. Silver and Wood

Susan awoke to the feeling of the comforter being pulled higher over her. She didn’t mind this at all, given the cold seeping in through the windows. But, instead of the warmth lulling her back to sleep as it usually would, she was further awakened by the feeling of someone cuddling themselves closer to her under the covers.

Smirking before she even opened her eyes, Susan wrapped an arm over the cuddler and pulled them close to her. And, though there was always the possibility that the baby (who was nearly old enough to drink) had climbed into bed with her, she knew that was not the case this morning.

“I’d have thought you’d be up by now,” she murmured as she nuzzled her face into Kerry’s hair. “Or have you finally conceded that the world will still turn even if you don’t get up before the crack of dawn?”

Kerry gave a horizontal shrug. 

“It’s a special occasion.”

“Is it?” 

Kerry rolled over onto her back, leaving Susan nuzzling her shoulder instead of her neck. She turned her head to face her and lifted a hand to Susan’s cheek just as the latter kissed/ blew a raspberry onto her bare shoulder. 

“Do you know what day it is?” Kerry asked as she stroked Susan’s cheek. 

“Kerry, you know full well I haven’t known what day it is since last February,” Susan said, glancing up at her. Then, her brow furrowed. “Or was it March?”

“It’s the thirteenth,” Kerry replied. 

“Friday the thirteenth?” Susan asked, lifting her lips from Kerry’s shoulder. 

_ “February _ thirteenth.”

“Right,” Susan said with a slight nod. “I knew that.”

“Sure you did,” Kerry said, giving her a look. “But even if you didn’t, you  _ do _ know what today is.”

Kerry turned over onto her left side as Susan took a moment to think. 

“I want to say it involved some kind of… commitment of some kind? Something about for better or worse? So long as we both shall live? Something like that,” she pretended to think out loud before looking at Kerry at smirking again. “We’ve been married for five whole years. Legally, at least. Twenty years  _ illegally _ before that.”

“For a total of  _ twenty-five years,” _ Kerry said, her brow rising.  _ “Twenty-five years. _ That’s a long time. _ ” _

“Certainly longer than I thought it would last,” Susan remarked. “Especially considering that I thought you might evict me after we first kissed.”

Kerry rolled her eyes, though she did feel her chest tighten slightly at the thought. Even now, a quarter of a century after the first time Susan had kissed her, the memory of how panicked Susan looked right after they broke apart haunted her. She could joke about it now, but Kerry knew that Susan meant it to a certain degree.

“I would never have evicted you,” Kerry found herself assuring Susan. “It would have just been… awkward between us.”

“Then, I may have evicted myself,” Susan replied. “Because if it wasn’t for your mom being there to talk to you, you may never have figured out you actually liked it.”

“I’d have figured it out  _ eventually,” _ Kerry said, rolling her eyes. “She just… sped up the process.”

“You could probably argue that for the  _ entire _ process,” Susan pointed out. “Because, you know, normally, you start the relationship and then bring the significant other home to meet your parents. But, in our case, the parent brought the significant other home to  _ you.” _

Kerry gave a small shrug of concession. 

“My mother always knew what she wanted,” she said with a small sigh. “Even if what she wanted wasn’t necessarily for her.”

“And what was it that your mother wanted for you?” 

“The same thing she always wanted,” Kerry replied softly, brushing her hand softly over Susan’s arm. “For me to be happy.”

“And have I made you happy?” Susan asked in a voice barely more than a whisper. 

Kerry raised her hand to Susan’s cheek once more. She cupped it, stroking her thumb over Susan’s skin, in her touch prayers of gratitude for the chance to share this moment just as she had gotten to share so many others and would share so many more. 

“More than I could have asked for,” she breathed in reply. “And what about you? Have I made you happy?” 

Susan closed her hand over Kerry’s and brought it down to her lips. She kissed it for a moment, before lowering it and breathing out a sigh. 

Then, she shrugged. 

“Once or twice.”

Kerry let out a gasp of feigned offense. But given that this was exactly what Susan had intended, her face broke into a wide grin as she pulled Kerry closer to her. 

“You didn’t let me finish,” Susan said, chuckling as Kerry attempted to wiggle herself out of her grip. “I meant once or twice a _day…._ _Every_ day… for twenty-five _years.”_

“Uh-huh.  _ Sure.” _

Susan grinned as she leaned her head forward slightly towards Kerry to kiss her on the lips. Kerry let her, wrapping her arm around Susan’s waist. 

They kissed for so long that they both lost count (not that either of them had been keeping track). 

Each time one of them came up for air, the other obliged them, their touch keeping them connected until their lips could meet again. And each time their lips did meet, their thoughts harmonized as they considered how each kiss was just as good now as it had been the first time they’d kissed and the thousands of times since.

When they finally broke apart, Susan rested her forehead against Kerry’s, relishing Kerry’s breath against her neck. It was one of those moments where she consciously knew that there wasn’t much of a height difference between them, but Kerry felt so small within her arms. 

Mildred Weaver had told her a long time ago - a  _ very _ long time ago, now - that Kerry didn’t trust just anyone to care for her, let alone take care  _ of _ her. The first time Susan had held Kerry like this was their very first night together. They were still both reeling from the events of the day, and, though they hadn’t shared it, were both feeling very, very scared. But even then, Susan knew that she was one of the chosen few that Kerry truly deeply trusted and that wasn’t something to take lightly. 

“You know,” Susan said quietly, causing Kerry to stir. “If you really wanted to make me happy, there is something you could do for me.”

Kerry let out a scoff but couldn’t keep herself from chuckling. 

“Alright,  _ fine,” _ she said as she sat up. “But only because it’s a special occasion. Otherwise, you’d be on thin ice.”

Kerry kissed Susan on the lips and then started moving down her neck to her collarbone. But as she started to lift the bottom of Susan’s tank top up, Susan gave her a look. 

“What?” Kerry asked in confusion.

“I meant go get me a cup of coffee,” Susan said coyly. “But if you want to do that too, I won’t complain.”

Kerry sat up again, letting out another scoff. 

“Well, if you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

But Susan just pulled her back down towards her, rolling her eyes.

“I  _ just  _ said I wouldn’t complain…”

Suzie watched Annie crack eggs into the mixing bowl on one half of her computer screen while skimming through a recipe on the other half. She could just barely see Charlie standing behind her, rolling crescent rolls up on a baking sheet further down the counter.

“Okay,” Annie said as she began whisking the eggs together. “Now what?”

“Just a second.” Suzie scrolled past the recipe writer’s life story to the next part of the recipe before breaking into a wide grin. “Okay, it says to add the milk and the spices and mix it in. And then… fold in the cheese.”

Annie glanced up at the iPad leaning against the counter in front of her. 

“Fold in the cheese?”

“Yeah. Fold in the cheese.” 

“Fold in the cheese,” Annie repeated. 

Suzie frowned at Annie’s seemingly confused expression for a second. When Annie raised an eyebrow, Suzie rolled her eyes and then before assuming an haughty (and downright unusual) accent of Moira Rose.

“Yes. Fold it in.”

“Fold it in,” Annie repeated with an emphatic eyebrow raise. “And how exactly do I do that?”

“You just fold it!” Suzie continued, equally emphatically. 

“How do you fold it? Do I fold it like a piece of paper and drop it in?” Annie asked, shaking the bowl of cheese at the iPad camera.

Suzie let out an exaggerated huff and rolled her eyes again. 

“I cannot show you  _ everything.” _

“Well, can you show me this  _ one _ thing?”

The sisters both stared at each other for a moment, brows raised, before breaking into broad grins. But as Annie resumed adding ingredients into the mixing bowl in front of her, Suzie frowned again. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Folding in the cheese,” Annie replied. “Because, unlike the characters on  _ Schitt’s Creek, _ I actually know how to do that.”

“No, I mean the spinach,” Suzie said, pointing at the greens Annie had just dumped into the bowl. “You were supposed to chop it fine.”

“This _ is _ fine.”

“It doesn’t _ look _ fine. It looks too big.”

“Well, it’s in now. So, it’ll have to do,” Annie said with a shrug. “Unless you want me to fish out each one and cut them into smaller pieces.”

“That’s  _ exactly _ what I want you to do,” Suzie said, crossing her arms. 

“Suzie, do me a favor, and shut up.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” Suzie said with a scoff. “ _ You _ shut up.”

“Don’t make me mute you,” Annie threatened before pouring the egg mixture into the pie pan.

“You wouldn’t mute me,” Suzie said, smirking.

The smirk was wiped from her face when Annie did just that. Suzie umuted herself only for Annie to hit the button again. 

“Stop… unmuting… yourself,” Annie said in between jabbing the iPad with her finger. 

“I… will… not,” Suzie said in the blips when her unmuting herself was faster than Annie muting her.

Right before the iPad toppled over from Annie’s ferocious mutings, Charlie snatched it away. She unmuted Suzie as she carried the iPad towards the living room.

“Whose side are you on?” Annie said with a huff. 

“I’m on  _ no one’s _ side,” Charlie chided as she took a seat on the couch. “I’m going to distract Suzie with the babies while you keep doing whatever it is she told you not to.”

Annie gave her a look, but nevertheless turned her attention to putting the quiche and crescent rolls into the oven. 

Charlie busied herself with turning the iPad camera around to show off two auburn-haired two-month-olds in their respective bassinets. Both wore onesies patterned with giraffes and little baby pants, albeit in different colors. One onesie had a giraffe pattern in green while the other was yellow, following the established rule that they had to be color-coded so as not to be confused. (This was proving more important with each passing day, as, the older they got, the more it was clear how identical they really were.)

“Look! Babies!” 

“Oh my gosh, they’re getting so  _ big,” _ Suzie said at the sight of her nieces. 

As Charlie leaned the iPad against the arm of the couch to pick one up, Suzie ran an unconscious hand over her own stomach. She was only just starting her second trimester, but had already started to show. And, if getting pregnant so soon after Annie wasn’t the ultimate of younger sibling  _ you-had-to-wait-but-I-don’t _ scenarios, she’d found out her due date could very likely land on Annie’s birthday.

“Miri has a lot of opinions on the impeachment proceedings,” Charlie said as she carefully held the green-onesied baby up to show Suzie. “Most of which are that Mitch McConnell doesn’t have a spine.”

“I think we all agree with her,” Suzie said as Charlie swapped babies. 

“Millie is more concerned with issues of public health,” Charlie said as she held up the yellow-onesied baby. “She thinks that President Biden’s plan has merit, but she’s concerned that vaccine production will not be able to keep up with his timeline.”

“Look at you,” Suzie said in an impressed voice. “Picking up babies like you’ve been doing it your whole life.”

“Charlie has a special connection with the babies,” Annie informed her as she sat down on the couch next to Charlie. “Mostly because she  _ is _ one.”

_ “Nu-uh,” _ Charlie retorted. “I’m going to be twenty-one on Monday. And what are you bitches going to do about it, huh?”

She looked from Annie to Suzie, who just shrugged. 

“Um… nothing?” Suzie replied as if it wasn’t a question. “For many reasons. First, we’re in the middle of a fucking pandemic, you dumbass. Second, it’s like ten degrees outside, which would be too cold to even do a distanced thing outside. 

“But mostly three, you’re turning twenty-one in the year when neither Annie nor I can drink with you. Because Annie is breastfeeding and-”

“And you got knocked up,” Charlie finished with a disappointed huff. 

Suzie’s eyes grew wide as Annie let out a shriek of mirth.

_ “Don’t say it like that,” _ Suzie hissed.

“What?” Charlie said innocently. “That’s what Sam said.”

“Hey, I said no such thing,” Suzie’s fiancé Sam chimed in as he leaned into the camera’s view. “I just responded to your question.”

“And what was her question?” Suzie asked, narrowing her eyes.

Sam looked at her and smiled. 

“If we got bored in quarantine.”

Annie let out another gleeful cackle as Suzie’s face flushed a deep red. Charlie joined in her laughter while Sam comforted Suzie (while fighting his own chuckles). 

“You’re one to laugh, Annie,” Suzie snapped. “Since you did too.”

“Uh, no I didn’t,” Annie said with a wicked grin on her face. She pointed at the babies. “They were  _ planned _ …. Well,  _ one _ of them was. Admittedly the second one was a surprise. But still. We knew we were going to have at least  _ one _ baby last year. We didn’t know there would be a quarantine involved.”

Kerry and Susan, who’d come downstairs just as Annie joined Charlie for middle-sibling mockery, watched the scene from the kitchen. Susan had her arms wrapped around Kerry’s shoulders with her chin resting on Kerry’s shoulder. 

“What do you say? Want to do this for another twenty-five years?” 

“Sure,” Kerry said with a slight shrug. “Surely they can’t still be living with us by then.”

Susan chuckled and squeezed her tighter. Kerry turned her head to kiss her on the cheek. 

“Coffee?” Susan said in a voice that was so close to a purr that Kerry shivered. 

“Yes, please.”

Susan nodded and kissed Kerry’s collar bone before lifting her head up. 

“Hey,” she called out in the direction of the girls. “Which one of you is responsible for making coffee?”

All three girls immediately looked up, Suzie and Charlie interrupted from chiding Annie over her underage drinking experiences being limited to getting drunk off of Shabbat wine. (“I don’t think you can claim ‘religious reasons’ for getting drunk, Annie.” “You can on Passover.”)

Then, without a moment’s hesitation, Charlie hopped up from the couch and rushed towards them. Annie followed a bit slower, both because she had left her crutches against the counter and because she had no intention of accidentally bowling their mothers over. 

“Happy anniversary!” Charlie said as she wrapped said mothers in a bear hug. “We’re making brunch and Ethan ran down to get champagne from Walgreens.”

“Charlie, he’s getting  _ diapers _ from Walgreens,” Annie corrected as she joined the bear hug.

“Well, I told him to get champagne, too. That way we can have mimosas.”

“You can’t have a mimosa for another two days,” Kerry pointed out as the hug broke apart. “You have to save yours for Monday night.”

“Or Monday morning,” Susan offered. “Given that Charlie doesn’t have to go to work.”

“It’s a federal holiday, which means neither do I,” Kerry replied. “But that doesn’t mean I can have a mimosa the morning of my day off.”

“You should!” Charlie said excitedly. “Momma, you and I should have mimosas on my birthday!”

Kerry opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Charlie brightened even more. 

“No, wait. You  _ have _ to. Since Annie and Suzie can’t drink with me  _ you _ should.”

Charlie looked so eager (and so pleased with herself for her reasoning) that Kerry couldn’t outright deny her. Instead, she just offered a, “We’ll see,” before kissing her on the forehead.

“Um, did y’all forget about us?” a voice asked from the couch. 

Charlie, suddenly remembering she’d been holding an iPad before hopping the couch to attack her mothers in a hug, rushed back. She picked it up and ran it back to hold it up to Susan and Kerry.

“Hi!” Suzie greeted, waving. “Happy anniversary!”

“Hi, honey,” Kerry greeted as she waved back. “We miss you.”

“I miss you guys, too,” Suzie said with a (sincerely sorrowful) sigh. “We thought about pushing it like we did when the m&ms were born, but with the mutations and stuff, we figured best not to. Not until we’re vaccinated.”

“You still get to join us in some way, at least,” Susan said with her own (sincerely sorrowful) sigh. “Soon. Someday soon. We’ll get to be together in person. Without needing to worry about mutations or masks or anything.”

Suzie was looking at her with such big sad eyes that, for a moment, Susan forgot she was twenty-five and not her baby girl anymore. 

(Of course, she still was, though. Being someone’s baby is not something you can ever truly grow out of. Not when you’re twenty-five or thirty or just about to turn twenty-one.)

Susan nodded. She gave Suzie a sad smile before they both inhaled deeply in unison. Then, Susan grinned. 

“Stand up. Show us how big you are.”

“Mommy, I just sent you a picture yesterday,” Suzie said, rolling her eyes. 

“Yeah, but I want to see it again.”

Suzie gave her a (very Kerry-like) look, but nevertheless stood up and turned sideways so they could see her baby bump. 

Wasn’t it just yesterday that Suzie had been the baby of Chloe’s baby bump? Or was it yesterday that she was showing her own baby bump off to Suzie and Annie? Or was it Annie showing them her own?

Though the latter was the closest to the truth, it had still been several long months since then. Yesterdays were funny like that. They could feel as close as the day before even years and years in the past. 

Susan felt someone’s touch and glanced down to see Kerry leaning against her. She had such a proud smile on her face as Suzie showed off what (or who) would eventually be their next grandchild.

Susan wrapped her arm around Kerry’s waist and pulled her closer to her. 

She was no stranger to physical affection (and Kerry certainly wasn’t either), but something about today made her need Kerry closer to her more than ever. 

“Oh, that reminds me,” Suzie said, drawing Susan back to the present. “Annie, Charlie, and I have presents for you guys.”

Susan and Kerry looked up at Charlie and Annie, who exchanged glances - and momentarily confused looks - before disappearing into Annie’s room. 

They returned a few moments later, bickering under their breath. They continued to bicker unintelligibly for a moment before Charlie held out a box to both of them. 

“There’s a strong chance we’ll need you to swap them,” Annie said frustratedly. “Seeing as Charlie forgot to mark which one was which.”

Charlie shot her a dirty look, but still looked a bit nervous as Susan and Kerry opened the boxes. 

Inside each of them lay a pendant on a chain. The one in Susan’s box was a thin wooden rectangle adorned with three tiny gemstones in a line. The one in Kerry’s were the outlines of three wooden diamonds layers on top of one another. And, given Charlie’s sigh of relief, they figured they were holding the right box. 

“We looked up which anniversary the twenty-fifth was and it said it was the ‘silver’ anniversary,” Suzie explained. “So, we wanted to get you something silver.”

“But then Charlie pointed out that it’s also technically your  _ fifth _ anniversary,” Annie added. “Which is the ‘wood’ anniversary.”

“So, we compromised and got you something that was both silver and wood,” Charlie finished.

“They’re beautiful,” Kerry said as she lifted her necklace out of the box. 

“We chose yours because they’re all the same shape, but they’re different colors. And they sort of… layer on each other,” Charlie said, pointing to the pendant. “Which is kind of like the three of us! In a way. Sort of. Like, you had Annie, and then eventually you added Suzie and then you finished with me!”

Suzie mistook Kerry’s moment of being overcome with emotion as confusion and rolled her eyes.

“Charlie, I told you that comparison was a stretch.” 

“No, no. I get it,” Kerry said, quickly. “It’s beautiful. Thank you, girls.”

All three of them grinned proudly before Charlie pointed to Susan’s. 

“And, Mommy, yours lays the gems out in the pattern of Orion’s Belt,” she explained. “Because you told us a long time ago that Orion’s Belt was your favorite constellation.”

It was Susan’s turn to be overcome with emotion. She looked down at the gemstones and thought of the twinkling stars that always served as a reminder of someone long gone who still was around to light the way.

“And, if you’ll notice the similar colors between the gems and the wood,” Annie said, pointing from Susan’s necklace to Kerry’s. “That’s intentional. The wood is stained to match the gems, which are a ruby, an emerald, and an amethyst. Or, in other words-”

“Our birthstones!” Charlie finished, cutting Annie off. “From oldest to youngest.”

Susan and Kerry chuckled as they looked between the necklaces and then to the young women who had picked them out with such care. 

Susan was the first to offer to put the necklace on, which she did for Kerry before turning around so Kerry could do the same for her. 

They admired them on each other for a moment before looking up. Their lips met once again before Susan pulled Kerry back into a hug, which both Charlie and Annie joined in on after waiting a respectful moment. 

They were the first to break apart, though, as Ethan’s return through the front door jarred them back to a reality where they had to continue preparing brunch and/or change diapers. 

Kerry and Susan, though, remained in their hug, savoring the moment just as they did all the others they shared together.

“To another twenty-five years?” 

“To another twenty-five years.”

“And however many more we can get after that?”

“And however many more we can get after that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy International Fanworks Day/ Charlie Weaver-Lewis' birthday!
> 
> In case anyone was wondering, she _did_ sucessfully convince Kerry to have a mimosa at ten o'clock in the morning on her day off. Which means that instead of doing some budget planning like she'd intended, Kerry instead cuddled with Charlie on her lap for a _very_ long time and then read her baby granddaughters four (4) storybooks before the champagne finally wore off. There may also have been some crying over how beautiful her baby granddaugthers were, but she doesn't need to be drunk for that.
> 
> So, I have very little explanation for this other than it is pure fluff and I am not ashamed. But, given that this past weekend would have been a major milestone in Susan and Kerry's relationship in the matriarchs unvierse, I had to. I incorporated some of the 2020/2021-era stuff laid out in my fic [Miracle of Miracles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28142481), where Annie gives birth to the m&ms - Miri and Millie. They were dressed in giraffe onesies in this chapter specifically for their Grandma, who I maintain [likes giraffes](https://sapphicsandscience.tumblr.com/post/632569175072751616/today-i-give-you-kerry-her-giraffe-scrub-cap). 
> 
> I wanted to capture the awe and love that comes with being in a relationship with someone for a long time along with the underlying sadness we're all feeling right now. It's a time when everything, even the happiest things, is tainted a bit. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel with vaccines, but there's still a long way to go. We still have to keep our distance and wear masks and do our part to keep each other healthy. We still don't know when things will truly be better, and we know they won't "go back to normal" because we will never be the same people we were before this. 
> 
> But there is still good to be found everywhere. There are still babies and anniversaries and sibling squabbles. The snow blanketing much of the US right now will eventually melt and give way to flowers. And one day, we'll get to hold our loved ones again without fear. And, until then, we keep going and we hold those in our bubbles close. We celebrate the little things and love as we much as we can. We can - and will - still be angry and hurt and grieve. But that is not all life is, even in the worst times. There will always be love and there will always be good in the world. I know the last part to be true, because you're here in the world and that alone makes the world a little bit better.
> 
> Sending love to you and yours wherever you are. Until next time.


	8. A Moment to Breathe

Charlie observed the infant lying in a car seat in front of her for a long moment. Her head was cocked to one side as she watched the three-month-old watch her. Then, she glanced up at Susan and pointed a chubby toddler finger at the baby.

“Baby.”

“Mm-hmm,” Susan said, nodding in reply. “That’s baby Ella. You know baby Ella.”

Charlie looked back down at baby Ella and repeated, “Baby.”

“Mm-hmm. Baby.”

Charlie took another moment to consider Ella before looking up at Susan once again. She pointed at Ella.

“Hit.”

_ “No,” _ Susan said firmly. “We do _ not _ hit. We do  _ not _ hit the baby.”

Susan reached out and gently stroked Ella’s arm. Charlie did the same. 

“You must be  _ gentle _ with the baby,” Susan explained as Charlie joined her. “See? Gentle-  _ Gentle, Charlie… _ . Good. That’s good being gentle.”

Susan ceased stroking Ella’s arm. Charlie stopped too, but was still giving the baby a look of utmost curiosity. She looked up at Susan for a third time.

“Hit.”

“And, we’re done,” Susan stated as she began to get to her feet. “That’s it. No more baby.”

She hoisted Charlie up onto her hip as she rose, leaving Charlie to make grabby-hands at the baby as Susan began to walk away.

“Noooooooo, _ ” _ Charlie whined as Susan began to walk away. “Baby!”

“Nope. No more baby,” Susan repeated, shaking her head. “You couldn’t be nice to the baby.”

_ “Babyyyyyyyy.” _

Susan ignored Charlie’s whining pleas to let her play with the baby again as she made her way back towards the others.

On a whim, Mark had invited Susan, Kerry, and the girls to join him and Elizabeth (and Ella) for a long weekend in a cabin on Lake Michigan. Susan had a suspicion the late invitation had less to do with him not wanting them to join and more to make up for the fact that Rachel could not come due to a recent grounding. 

Still, the idea of a few days away from the city before school started again was a welcome one, so the three ER Attendings worked together to arrange shifts being covered. The Greene-Cordays arrived to check in late on the first of August with the Weaver-Lewis-Levinses joining the next morning. 

They’d left early enough that all three girls napped in the car on the two hour drive around the bottom tip of the lake towards Benton Harbor, Michigan. By the time the car had been unpacked and beds had been claimed, they were so wired and ready for the water that they had to be physically restrained just so sunscreen could be applied. 

With the exception of sunscreen reapplications and requests for them to come drink water, neither Annie nor Suzie had stayed out of the water for long since. Except for just now, when they’d run out of games to play with just the two of them and decided to recruit someone to join them.

They had been staring at their recruit for several moments now, waiting for them to notice their presence (even though they had an arm draped over their eyes as they reclined on a lounge chair).

“I know you’re standing there,” Kerry said without looking up. “What do you want?”

“For you to come play with us,” Suzie answered. 

“I’ll come play with you in a little while,” Kerry said with an absent wave. “Go play.”

“But you’re just laying here,” Annie pointed out. “You’re not doing anything.”

“I’m enjoying the sun,” Kerry informed them, still not looking up. “I’ll come play with you in twenty minutes. Until then, ask Uncle Mark to play with you.”

“Uncle Mark is making lunch,” Suzie lamented as she glanced towards where Mark stood in front of a charcoal grill.

“Then, go play by yourselves for now and I’ll come play with you after lunch.” 

“You just said a second ago that you’d come in twenty minutes!”

“That was before I knew we were about to have lunch.” Kerry lifted her arm from her face and lifted her head to look at them. “Unless you’re done swimming for now, in which case you can dry off.”

Annie and Suzie considered this option for a moment. They exchanged a glance before shaking their heads in unison.

“We don’t wanna dry off,” Annie muttered.

“Okay. Then, go swim.”

The girls made their discontent known through a shared huff but ran off back towards the sandy edge of the lake before it could get them in trouble. Kerry watched them go before laying her head back again. She’d just put her arm back over her eyes when she felt twenty-two pounds of wriggling toddler put down on her chest.

Kerry let out a disgruntled  _ “Ow,” _ before looking up at Susan, who just pointed at the wriggling toddler and stated, “Your daughter needs you.”

“Why is she suddenly  _ my _ daughter?” Kerry asked as she started to sit up.

“Because she’s threatening violence.”

Kerry paused her sitting up and frowned. 

“And that makes her  _ my _ daughter?” Kerry looked Charlie in the eye. “Who are you threatening with violence?”

Charlie pointed towards Ella’s car seat and let out a mournful, “Baby.”

“You’re threatening the  _ baby _ with violence?” Kerry exclaimed. “Oh, Charlie. You can’t threaten the baby.”

Charlie did not attempt to defend herself or provide any additional explanation (so far as a seventeen-month-old could), but rather just pointed again and let out another  _ “Babyyyy.” _

“She knows a total of twelve words, one of which is ‘hit.’ And I don’t think either of us taught her that.” Susan glanced at Mark and narrowed her eyes. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

Susan let his confused look give way to a stammering defense before chuckling and starting towards some large rocks at the edge of the water. 

Elizabeth was perched on top of a large flat one with her knees pulled up to her chest. She had one of Mark’s baggy t-shirts on over her one-piece and sat facing the water, her eyes closed as she basked in the sun.

“Can I join you?” Susan asked once she was in earshot. 

Elizabeth opened her eyes and glanced around. Once she spotted Susan, she smiled slightly and patted the rock next to her in invitation. 

“I needed this,” she remarked as Susan sat down. “Getting out of the city. Taking a break from being in the house or at work. All of it.”

“What do you mean?” Susan said with feigned ignorance. “It’s not like you’ve had a busy year or anything, right?”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes before shaking her head. Her curls were pulled up in a loose ponytail, but nevertheless moved slightly in the breeze came off the lake. 

“I can’t believe it’s been a year,” she said. “This time last year, we weren’t even engaged yet. And now we’re married. With a child.” 

“And Mark survived a brush with death,” Susan finished. 

Elizabeth nodded and then drew in a deep breath. She closed her eyes again. 

“You know, I was never the kind of person who fantasized about my engagement wedding when I was young. I never gave much consideration to what it would be like to plan all of that and… and I definitely never considered what it would be like to get so close and for it not to happen.

“And I feel like I’m…. We’re past it. It’s done. We got through the wedding. We had the baby…. And yet I… I don’t feel right anymore. I mean, I feel  _ better _ than I did while all of it was happening, but I don’t… I don’t feel right. I don’t feel like the same person I was last summer.”

“And it’s not just because you got married and became a mother,” Susan said in what was both a statement and a question.

Elizabeth took a long moment’s pause and then nodded. Within moments, she felt emotion grip her heart and the sobs rise in her chest. 

“I’m never going to feel like that person again, am I?” she asked in a shaky voice. “I’m never…. I don’t feel like that person anymore. But I don’t know what...what  _ changed. _ I don’t know why I-I can’t feel like that again. To feel like I’m not… not constantly scared. Worried. Un-Un-Un….”

Elizabeth bit her lip, which managed to momentarily keep her words at bay, but couldn’t stop the sobs escaping her chest. 

For a long moment, Susan rubbed unconscious circles over Elizabeth’s back as she wept. Elizabeth shook her head as she cried, but if that was in shame over losing it or trying to shake thoughts from her head, Susan didn’t know.

“But I  _ am _ happy,” Elizabeth said finally as she managed a moment to breathe. “I-I  _ am _ happy. I have him. I have Ella. We’re-We’re through it. And-And-And yet, I feel that there’s something…. Something’s holding me back. It’s like I can’t just… just let myself feel it fully. Let myself  _ be _ happy.” 

Susan nodded in acknowledgement as she considered Elizabeth’s words. 

The feeling was one she understood well. A hesitant happiness at getting through a year of illness and unknowns that, while over for the moment, nevertheless left anxiety in its wake. And it was that concept of being over  _ for the moment, _ that was the worst part. They were safe, but at the same time,  _ not _ safe. They’d made it this far, but there was a lurking sense that something could go wrong at any moment. 

They’d survived this long. They’d made it this far, something they knew so many in a similar position might not have. They were amongst the lucky ones who’d come out of it relatively unscathed, but who were left with the sense that it would never be truly over. 

How are you supposed to truly enjoy the blessings you have now when you know things could change in an instant? How do you go back to life as you  _ knew _ it when you know that life is no longer your own?

Susan’s hand continued to rub reassuring circles across Elizabeth’s back as she took her own moment to breathe. Then, she began.

“It’s like…. It’s like when someone tells you the world is different than the way you see it. That it’s not as fair. Not as clear cut. And once you know that - once it’s pointed to you - you can never  _ unsee _ it. You can never  _ not _ notice that things are unfair. You can never  _ not _ see the problems that exist. 

“And sometimes you see them so much or so often that you… you get overwhelmed by it. You wish you could go back to the way it was before. When you didn’t know. When you couldn’t see it. But at the same time, you know you really don’t. Because you know that not seeing it was denial. And you don’t want to be in denial.”

Susan inhaled deeply. 

“Lizzie, you’re not the same person you were a year ago,” she said quietly. “But I don’t think you want to be. Because if you go back to that, unaware of what could happen, or just unwilling to consider it a possibility, it would be even worse if it came back. You’d be even more caught off guard and you’d probably feel even worse than you do now.”

Elizabeth gave a small nod, but then immediately shook her head. 

“I don’t feel like I can plan anything. A month, six months, a year, ten years - I feel stuck. I don’t know what’s going to happen or what  _ could _ happen….” Elizabeth pressed her fingers deep into her temples. “I feel powerless. And I don’t like feeling powerless over my own life.”

Susan nodded in understanding. 

“I think you should see a therapist about that.”

Elizabeth couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her at Susan’s suggestion (but, of course, that was the point). 

“I’m kidding,” Susan assured her. “Though, admittedly, the longer that I know Carmen Vargas-Vega, the less I think I’m joking.”

She wrapped an arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders and pulled her close. Then, she let out a sigh.

“You’ve had a helluva year. And there’s always going to be the chance that things are going to happen again. So, sometimes, all we can do is sit in the moment and enjoy what’s around us right now. And I know that’s not going to eliminate the worry and fear on its own, but it can make you feel better right now.”

Elizabeth gave herself a moment for Susan’s words to sink in before she nodded and glanced sideways at her. 

“Where did you learn that?”

“It wasn’t so much a ‘where’ as it was a ‘when.’ Or, really, a ‘who.’” Susan shrugged. “I guess you could say I had a mentor of sorts who taught me that. When I was going through my year of not being able to plan too far in advance. Of feeling powerless.”

Elizabeth’s brow furrowed slightly. 

“When was that?”

“When my sister left and I ended up with Suzie,” Susan replied. “I felt stuck too. Everything hinged on whether or not Chloe came back and  _ when.” _

“And this mentor of yours told you to enjoy the moment?”

“In a way,” Susan said with another shrug. “It was more like just enjoying what I have while I have it. Never forgetting that it might not last, but not sacrificing the joy moment for the fear of the unknown.”

Susan squeezed Elizabeth tight.

“You’ve got a lot of good in your life, Lizzie,” she whispered. “Your husband and your daughter. And us. And, I mean, look around. Look where you are and how beautiful it all is.”

Susan gestured to their secluded little alcove on the beach. A few feet ahead of them, the cold, fresh water of Lake Michigan broke in little waves against the rocks upon which they sat. The breeze off the lake carried the smoke of the grill and the sound of the girls’ laughter towards the trees surrounding them. The late summer sun was nearly overhead, its rays seeping deep into their skin and warming them from the outside in.

“We don’t know what will happen in the future. But we know what will happen in the next five minutes. So, let’s just enjoy that for now.”

Elizabeth inhaled deeply as wind rolled off the water. She nodded. 

“I like being in the woods,” she remarked as she glanced around the trees. “It reminds me of the boarding school I went to as a teenager. I spent a lot of time climbing the trees nearby.”

Susan cocked her head slightly in question as a smirk curled her lips. 

“Is ‘climbing trees’ a euphemism for getting high?” she asked, dropping her voice. “Because if it is, I  _ also _ spent some time climbing trees in my youth.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, her curls bouncing as she shook her head. 

_ “No,” _ she said with a smirk of her own. “I mean  _ literally _ climbing trees.”

“Like… scaling trees?” Susan asked, her brow rising. “Like, baby Elizabeth physically climbed trees when she was in high school.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth stated proudly. “It was the only way to defy authority without getting expelled. And, no matter what the Head Teacher said, it was  _ not _ in the rule books. Or at least it wasn’t until after I left.”

“Right. But now I need to know - Have you ever gotten high? Because, if not, I will  _ get _ you high.” Susan paused, thinking. “Now, granted, I haven’t smoked weed in fifteen years. But I’m sure it’ll affect me the exact same way it did when I was nineteen.”

Before Elizabeth could say anything, Susan paused again. 

“Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t know a dealer anymore,” she thought aloud. “So, scratch that. I rescind my offer…. Unless maybe Dave Malucci knows someone.”

“Why Malucci?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like he would know someone like that.”

Elizabeth paused to consider this and then shrugged in acknowledgement.

“Well, we’ve no need to find out, as, yes, I  _ have _ gotten high before. I was in my twenties I think…. Actually, you know what. I was twenty-four. I remember clearly because the last time I did was right before I took my General Anatomy exam in medical school.”

“You got stoned before a  _ med school exam?” _ Susan asked incredulously. “And they let you be a surgeon?”

“Hey, I got a ninety-six percent on that exam, which was the highest in the class,” Elizabeth said with a touch of haughtiness in her voice. “And I don’t even remember taking it.”

“If you value your career, do me a favor and  _ never _ mention that in front of Kerry. Because she won’t admire that  _ nearly _ as much as I do,” Susan said in a playfully warning tone. “Although, she can’t deny never having done it, so use that as you will.”

Elizabeth chuckled and glanced at the redhead, who had still not left her perch on the lounge chair, but was placating the children by throwing a plastic ball out into the water for them to chase after. A moment after she looked that way, Mark summoned them all for lunch.

“And speaking of favors,” Susan said as she and Elizabeth climbed off their rock, “may I request that you  _ don’t _ pick us any wildflower bouquets for us? At least not if you and Mark intend on making another baby while we’re here.”

At the request - and the memory of the unfortunate, ahem,  _ encounter _ between Mark and Elizabeth and some poison ivy Elizabeth had picked while they’d been camping the previous summer- Elizabeth gasped and slapped Susan’s arm with the flip-flop in her hand.

_ “You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.” _

“And I  _ didn’t  _ tell anyone. But you never said I couldn’t  _ talk about it. _ And I figured that wouldn’t apply to you, since you already knew,” Susan said, raising her hands defensively. “And, you know, what? I’m gonna amend my earlier request. You’re welcome to pick wildflowers. Just take Suzie with you so she can tell you which ones are poisonous and which ones aren’t.”

“I  _ know _ which ones are poisonous,” Elizabeth said with a scoff. 

“Are you sure? Because I know for a fact, no American child would have made that mistake,” Susan said sincerely. “‘Leaves of three, leave it be,’ Elizabeth. And when I say ‘be’ I mean as in ‘leave it there.’ Not ‘b’ as in ‘BJ.’”

“It was a  _ handjob _ not a bl-”

Elizabeth cut herself off from correcting Susan as the latter lit up in delight (which earned her another slap from Elizabeth’s flip-flop). 

Susan, though, already had her flip flops on, meaning she could make a quick getaway before Elizabeth could retaliate further. 

She leapt out of Elizabeth’s reach and took off to where Kerry, Mark, and the girls were gathering at the picnic table, quickly taking a seat between Annie and Suzie before Elizabeth could catch her. (It may have saved her from sandal swatting, but it didn’t save her dirty looks shot across the table.)

Elizabeth felt Mark kiss her on the forehead as he sat down on the bench next to her, leading her to turn and look at him. 

Her eyes rose automatically to the scar that ran across the top of his bald head. It was a permanent reminder of all that had taken place over the last year. The lasting mark of a bad memory she’d rather forget. But as her eyes found his, she was reminded of that happiness. Of the love they celebrated. Of the daughter borne of their love. The real tangible things she had in this very moment. 

She drew in a deep breath through her nose, letting her lungs fill with the breeze and the smoke and the sunscreen and all the other things around her right now. 

Susan was right. She did not know what the future would hold, but she could rely on the next five minutes. And, in times like these, that would need to be good enough. 

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life exists in a series of befores and afters. There is a  _ before _ you met someone, and there is an  _ after. _ There is a  _ before _ someone died, and there is an  _ after. _ There is a  _ before _ major life-altering events, and there is an  _ after. _
> 
> I know the exact date that COVID came to my city. I know what day we had our planning meeting at work where we sat down to try and figure out how we would get our patients their medicines in a safe way. I remember how we sat there for hours, making decisions and plans, only for all of those decisions and plans to go out the window four days later. The local university pulled all of its students out of clinical practice that Monday, meaning we went from having six students to help down to just one in a matter of hours. All the while, 70+ patients a day were coming to get their medicine as the governor started shutting the entire state down. 
> 
> It’s hard to believe it’s March. That those dates, so strongly seared into my memory, are coming around again. That in just a matter of days, we’ll have officially surpassed a year of the pandemic. When I think about the fact that we’ve been at this for almost a year, I think of the sorrow and the grief and anger. And the exhaustion.  _ God _ the exhaustion. 
> 
> But even as we approach a calendar year of this, I know that, as of last week, we got our first shipment of vaccines. That in less than a year, we get to start vaccinating people against a deadly virus that has caused havoc and heartache throughout our lives. And while we don’t know when we’ll get the next batch after these doses are used up, the fact that we can celebrate making the world a little safer right now.
> 
> I wish I could say that we were in the after of all of this. I wish I could say that it was over and that we can all go back to life as we knew it. But I can’t. And even if we were somehow magically past all of this, we can never go back to that. Even if the systems all remain the same, we will never be the same people that we were before this began. 
> 
> I expect that’s how Elizabeth must have felt after the events of season 7. Though we know the worst was yet to come, in between seasons 7 and 8, she was feeling hesitant hope. Things were good at that moment, but the looming fear of the unknown ahead made her feel stuck. She wanted to enjoy what she had, but she wasn’t sure if the happiness could last, which made her feel hesitant to allow herself to enjoy it at that moment. 
> 
> But maybe I’m just projecting. That’s how I’ve felt most of the last year, and I’m sure that’s probably how a lot of you reading this have felt too. 
> 
> But I can say that I’m feeling that hesitant hope. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s barely more than a pinprick, and it’s often so dim that I’m sure I’m imagining it, but it’s there. We still don’t know how long the tunnel is and how far left we have to go, but we know it’s coming. 
> 
> So, right now, just as we’ve faced every day of the last year, we have to take our moments to breathe and enjoy that which is around us right now. Whether that’s family or pets or even the cup of coffee you just made - indulge those moments. Take your moment to breathe. It might not feel like much, but it’s what will keep us going. 
> 
> It’s been a helluva year and it’s likely there’s a helluva year yet to come. But humans are a resilient species. We can endure. And, if you don’t believe me, think of how much you’ve endured in the last year. And then think of the fact that you’re here now. 
> 
> Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
> 
> Until next time.


End file.
